Civic Education for the Youth

Seminar organized by Nepal Foundation for Advanced Studies (NEFAS)

19 June 2005, Birgunj

The latest venue for the civic education programmes organized by Nepal Foundation for Advanced Studies was in Birgunj in the central Tarai. Earlier seminars in Birgunj have shown that NEFAS could expect some solid contribution for the participants. Although the participant list in this town showed a similar mix of teachers, academicians and other workers in the public sphere like journalists, civil society workers and political activists, just like in any other parts of the country, they refrained from toeing their party lines. While this may not be considered an achievement by most people, for NEFAS, this does produce positive results as it gives a lot of time for feedback to the presenter on the prescribed topic of the presentation. Politics itself is not bad, but using an academic forum for the purpose is an avoidable distraction.

Executive Director of NEFAS Prof. Ananda Srestha provided a short introduction of the theme of the seminar saying "Recently, some of the chapters of our earlier discussions on civic education have been included in the school curriculum as a compulsory subject. This means that these discussions that we are organizing have a meaning. Let us centre our discussions on how to make the youths politically conscious. Let us not be involved in pushing them to adopt party lines. It is their choice that they will have to make if they are interested in doing so. We hope to collect some useful comments from today's discussion which can be used in the final book.

The seminar was chaired by Bhagwan Yadav, a university teacher of the local Hari Khetan Campus. The presentation on the role of the youth in a democracy and the factors affecting them was done by Shiva Raj Dahal. Dahal's thesis was supplemented by Prof. Gunanidhi Sharma by providing the economic factors affecting the youth of the country.

Shiva Raj Dahal's paper looks at today's youth and discusses the deviations seen in the younger generation in the country. He traces the responsible factors to the political sector which was not respecting the education sector as it should ordinarily have. The disparities in the teachings, the deficiencies in teaching in different parts of the country and the general atmosphere in schools were all opened by Dahal as topics to be discussed by the floor. Drug abuse, disorientation of the youth from patriotic activities, taking up arms and leaving the country formed a vital part of the discussion as well. Politics is that master determinant of all policies and good policies emanate from good politics was his contention.

The disciplined participation from the participants during the floor discussion meant that a lot of comments put forward by them related actually with the teachings in the class rooms and the subjects being taught. Interesting aspects of the school curriculum like which subject was to be replaced by the new "civic education' subject also made up a heated topic for the floor commentators. In fact, the topic of civic education itself stole the show at the expense of the actual topic of the seminar, the role of the youth in such education.

EXCERPT FROM FLOOR DISCUSSION

• Why only for the humanities and social sciences section? Civic education needs to be provided to all faculties. In fact, it is needed by all citizens including public servants.
  
• It was announced in 2001 that civic education would be introduced as a compulsory subject. Until then, it was optional in the humanities faculty. Now you say that it is going to be Compulsory in Class 11. Which subject is being replaced for that? I hear that it is Nepali that is being removed. I also hear that Nepali teachers are against that. Please inform more on this.
  
• The paper has not defined the role of the youth in this paper, although the same cannot be said about the definition of the youth.
  
• You show concern over the exodus and the "going underground" of the youth. What is the reason for this? Unless you diagnose the ills you cannot treat the disease.
  
• You contend that Nepal is on the verge of being turned into a nation of labourers. In fact, this has already happened. About 150 youths are going out for jobs every day and about 100 billion rupees is being taken in as remittance by the country. Nepal is being known as a supplier of unskilled and semi-skilled labourers. This scenario needs to be reflected in the paper.
  
• You say that the leadership does not have the qualification to lead, but this is a natural phenomenon in underdeveloped countries. As long as there is no rotation of leadership and as long as octogenarians rule, this will continue and the youth will always be marginalized. If you ask me, it is this particular aspect that has weakened the parliamentary system.
  
• It is not acceptable that Nepali be replaced by this subject, especially because we are all Nepali people. How can a Nepali lead a normal life without the Nepali language? As it is, Nepali is a neglected subject, and this will only exaggerate the problem. Increase the credit hours instead of replacing vital subjects.
  
• The paper tries to deal with political deviations in the youth only. There are cultural, economic, social and other deviations without taking care of which the political deviations cannot be corrected.
  
• There is a lot of language usage problems in the paper. The vast number of mistakes, almost every line has them, need to be corrected in an academic paper before publishing it.
  
• The paper does not include quantitative data.
  
• Please provide the reasons for social disintegration and the missing elements of good governance in the paper.
• Please discuss state responsibility as well, not just citizen's responsibility. Birgunj is full of factories, but not even one per cent of the workers are Nepali. What is the state's responsibility here? This would give some idea about why youths are going "underground".
• We need to diagnose the reasons for the deviations in today's youth. In the villages, there is lack of education, and if you have education there is no employment. Without reservation and positive discrimination there will be no job opportunity. The Madhesis are being discriminated against. Please make these things clear.
  
• You say that youths are not allowed political participation. That is not enough. If youths do not participate in other sectors like industrialization there can be no going forward.
  
• The youths are taking up menial jobs in foreign lands. If they take up the same jobs in the country, the nation would have developed.
  
• Students have been pushed into politics from the very beginning by politicians instead of teaching them to be engaged in work.
  
• We talk big on emulating developed countries but are miserly in practice.
  
• Education of patriotism, citizenship needs to be imparted at the very earliest in school.
  
• Foreign workers are working in Nepal. Foreign businessmen do business here. Unless we teach our children to work, this will not change.
  
• Youths appear to be turning away from their responsibility towards the nation. The education system is party responsible for that. The privatization of education has prevented that from happening as it is compartmentalizing students making them incapable of analyzing the national situation. Students in private schools do not have time away from studies. They are completely shielded from politics. We may have good doctors or engineers later on, but a good doctor will not mean a good citizen and will be devoid of any responsibility towards the nation. If we are just producing manpower to be sent abroad, such a strategy will work. But even that will not work in the long run. You go to the villages today and you have a dearth of workers in the farm. Women are being forced to work in the farm sector and the male youths are being displaced.
  
• Where else do you go for employment if all avenues are being blocked? Maybe you take up arms.
  
• Factories need to take up social responsibility as well. They do not train local people to work but just import them. Even the government policymakers for the Birgunj dry port refused to accept that they had any social responsibility. They suffer from such poverty of thinking. There is hardly any entry doors anywhere for Nepali workers in Birgunj.
  
• Intolerance and irresponsibility of leadership, political parties and institutions have been affecting our politics.
  
• The education policy that we have adopted is not being geared towards empowering the people.
  
• Your analysis that corruption germinated during the Panchayat and bore fruit in the past 15 years is partially true. But in a more holistic manner, what were the other roots of deviation in youth? I think that politics is the main driver of all other sectors. If politics goes off-track, everything else moves out of track.
  
• You have not talked about how, when and where civic education is to be initiated. But even non-educated people need civic education, not just students of a particular class.
  
• Issues of education is usually limited to the NGO sector. And the fast evolving information technology is bringing forth new issues. The rural sector gets islanded in that respect. The villages are changing drastically because of deviations in youth. If we do not immediately discuss how civic education can be introduced there, the future looks fearsome.
  
• Please also include the role of the civil society in civic education. These are powerful pressure groups.
  
• Our effort is being focused on tackling financial corruption. But there are also other types of corruption like favouritism and the like.
  
• The term 'youth' should also include women and the gender aspect.
  
• We have seen that a dam has been built in Nawalparasi and it has not been turned into a political issue by anyone. Citizens have no civic education to be able to contribute to the defence of the national interest.
  
• The education policy will have to be made more awareness-oriented than just job-oriented.
  
• We have been forcing autocracy by using the youths. This is the dominant thinking in Nepali society. Civic awareness is not only a political party initiative. It should be practised by everyone.
  
• Education is being compartmentalized into rural-urban, public-private and the like. We need to harmonize education.

Reply by author
After promising that he would incorporate the relevant comments in the final draft of his paper, Shiva Raj Dahal made the following points:

• I do agree that politics is the master policy, which if righted, rights other sectors.
• I think that awareness is needed regarding national politics and policy among youths. Partisan politics should be left for him to decide and not our concern.
• The past 12 years did show that there were a lot of weaknesses in the practice of democratic politics.
• The series of seminars on civic education was initiated in the mid90s.

Prof Gunanidhi Sharma: We are in a phase of transition. We have accepted that me are on the verge of being displaced in a competitive world. At the same time we are losing social opportunities like health and education. The state is taking the side of market forces and not acting friendly towards the poor.

If poverty reduction data is based on consumption patterns and if that consumption is related with the assets you sell, how can you say that you have reduced poverty by selling what you have?

The size of the loans has gone up to 68 per cent of the GDP and foreign loans is 50 per cent of GDP. Every year we allocate 17 per cent of the annual budget for repayment. About a third of the regular spending goes to do that. This leaves little spending for health and education, And the market friendly policies ensure that the poor are deprived of these spending the most. For example, in Kalikot one kg of salt costs 80 rupees.

Budgetary allocation follows the loudness of parliamentary voices and there are less MPs in rural areas than in urban areas, because of the structure of the constituencies. This makes the whole development process urban oriented in our kind of democracy. Such injustice can therefore be said to be state sanctioned.

I find that the policies of the state, throughout history, has tended to let the sleeping dog lie. The biggest crime it has committed is to declare its friendliness to the market forces. We need to come out of this mindset and talk about allowing resources of every part of the country participate in the economic development process. We talk of outward orientation in policies while the problems are piling up on the domestic front.

Discouraging local initiatives like small savers will not do us any good. We develop big projects for foreigners like the Seti project without much thinking. Even the drinking water from the Seti will need the project's assent now. We are all responsible for the ills, not just the Panchayat or the multiparty era. We need to come to our senses as people have already taken up arms.

The manpower we have is 54 per cent of the population which is economically active. This should have been good for the economy. But again, how can you employ such huge amount of resources by being outward oriented?

Bhagwan Yadav from the chair

• Until we learn to implement proper policies we will never improve the condition of the nation, no matter how much we discuss about it.
• All these ideas that we have discussed are related with the functioning of the state, whether it is liberty, citizenship, democracy, or economy. Politics should mean state policy, not some dirty power struggle. This requires political participation by one and all. And this awareness comes through education.
• It is not just our economy, we do not even have a foreign policy. Why do we not import good things from India, but only the bad? What are the ways we can serve our national interest through external affairs?
  
• If you have hand-to-mouth problems, when do you have time to think for the state?
  
• There is little understanding about democracy and liberty in Nepal. And until the economy is strengthened there can be no improvement in the situation.
  
• Also, youths alone will not help build the nation. Wisdom [older generation] is needed along with the enthusiasm [younger generation].
  
• In spite of the debate about imposing civic education in the science and technology faculties, we need to educate them on Nepal and Nepaliness.