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Seminar on Civic Education for the Youth
Organised by Nepal Foundation For Advanced
Studies (NEFAS)
30 May 2006, Jaleswar
Nepal Foundation for Advanced Studies organized
its civic education seminar in Jaleswar, the ancient town in the
central Tarai, for the second time on 30 May 2006. The discussion
series on civic education being organized by NEFAS in different
parts of the country has been carried out in cooperation with
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung of Germany. The discussions originally
aimed at generation of ideas about educating the younger generation
on their constitutional rights and obligations is increasingly
getting focused among teachers who have the task of teaching the
subject in their schools. Although political activists and other
public stakeholders including journalists are regular participants
in these seminars, this gradual shift in focus has made the discussions
more productive, in the sense that the schoolteachers have been
able to provide their own experiences in teaching the subject.
The Jaleswar seminar was chaired by Shivanarayan Yadav, a well
respected teacher.
Before the discussions began, Ananda Srestha,
Executive Director of NEFAS, welcomed the participants and introduced
the theme of the seminar. He had this to say:
This is our second programme on civic education
in this town. There are other issues that we have been organizing
discussions on. Our publications will prove to you that we have
been involved in raising national development issues aimed at
impacting on policy. Many of them are part of the university
curriculum today.
We have a plan to take the civic education
discussions to 42 places of the country and we have already
done it in 18 places. The aim is to educate the young on democracy.
We have already known how things go astray without the knowledge
of democracy, particularly in the political circle. We are in
the midst of a civil war situation because of a lack of understanding
of democracy and its norms. Could this situation be a result
of a lack of knowledge about democracy in the youth as well?
Here political education becomes important. This does not mean
that youngsters should take a partisan line in politics. But
again, there is a need for the youngsters to be aware politically.
This is vital. I hope the floor comes up with suggestions regarding
the education of youth about democracy, after the presentations
are made.
FES representative Dev Raj Dahal's note: FES
is afiliated with the German Socialist Democratic Party and
has been working in Nepal since 1995. FES is involved in promoting
democratization in different parts of the world and in Nepal
we are involved in various sectors-- media, labour unions, political
parties etc. to do so. Our objective is to promote democracy,
social justice, solidarity and peace by minimizing and holding
debates on possible conflicts and ways to mitigate them.
In Nepal, we saw that political parties were
indoctrinating their workers telling them that their own party
was supreme and need not bother with the sentiments and needs
of other parties. This would surely polarize politics to the
extremes which needed to be checked. We also felt the need to
educate the general people to make them capable citizens with
the objective of promoting democracy.
Over 25 discussions were organized before
publishing this book by NEFAS, including one in Jaleswar earlier.
The book is being continuously updated through additional discussions.
Other donors too are invlolved in similar projects but they
have been facing hiccups. NEFAS receives cooperation from all
making us believe that we can push this education process forward.
Since Nepal has signed international conventions on rights,
we believe that people are sovereign. But the people must realize
this fact, and we need to educate them so. People's rights are
changing along with the advancement in their age. The world
itself is a changing context thus the rights concept is changing
along with time. This book before you helps you understand these
complexities.
How can the younger generation be responsible
to the society? Civic education helps them do that. Again, how
do we mainstream those sectors that are not rights-oriented,
e.g. farmers? Civic education helps in that direction.
The book is being accepted by schools, teachers,
parties and others. The subject itself is in the process of
being accepted in the curriculum. Since there are not enough
teachers in the subject, that may yet take some time. But, ultimately,
it will happen.
The main presentation at the seminar was made
by Shivaraj Dahal backed up by resource person Prof. Ram Kumar
Dahal. Shiva Raj Dahal's presentation included the various factors
affecting the youth of today and the negative social trends
among them arising out of a weak democratic governance. Politics
must rise up to meet the emerging challenges he said. Dahal
said that the profile of political morality must be raised in
the Nepalese society in order to direct the younger generation
towards making them contribute positively to the society. This,
he said, would not be possible where politics is looked upon
as a dirty game of some and a profession pursued by school backbenchers
and those rejected by the society in general. Dahal's thesis
is that the best and the brightest were being pushed out of
the political sector as a culture had developed whereby people
without training and experience were joining politics resulting
in the wrong political culture.
Ram Kumar Dahal's presentation dealt with
the need to provide civic education not only in schools but
other sectors as well. He gave several examples of how that
can be done. But the central theme of his presentation was to
recommend a separate government to deal with the need for such
education. He said, "The state has the responsibility of
providing civic education in countries throughout the world,
even in developed countries, he said. But we do not have a separate
platform to educate ourselves about the constitution or democracy.
In spite of these shortcoming, there is the acute need to develop
a critical mass of people who understand the changing contexts
and the rights of the people e.g. ethnic inclusion and other
social challenges. These need to be understood by the younger
generation, as it helps tolerance among them. It was difficult
to have people from different political parties participating
in one programme in the past, but the culture started developing
to an extent whereby that is not the case anymore."
The highlight of the Jaleswar discussion was
the overwhelming concern shown by the participants about minority
rights and had very little to do with the book itself. This
could perhaps be because the participants from the political
sector were more vocal. There were a lot of questions regarding
the motive of the seminar at a transition phase in Nepalese
politics. This prompted Dev Raj Dahal to intervene three times
during the discussions to shape it into something more relevant
for the organizers. Nonetheless there were curious voices particularly
regarding how the subject was getting introduced in schools
and how the curriculum was developed. Some were concerned about
the problems arising from a lack of civic education not only
in the formal education system but in the informal sector as
well. They recommended that similar discussions be organized
among the people in the villages rather than just narrowing
down to the formal education system and teachers.
The discussion ended with a note of gratitude
for participation by Chairperson Shivanarayan Yadav to the discussants
and a vote of thanks by Ananda Srestha.
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