Seminar on Civic Education for the Youth

Organised by Nepal Foundation For Advanced Studies (NEFAS)

1 June 2006, Sindhuli

Although the core objective of the seminar for NEFAS is to gather feedback for its book on civic education which is widely used in the school curriculum at present, it provides a significant opportunity for participants to delve into more peripheral issues of local and national politics. The burning political issues of the day find a comfortable place in the discussions while the participants discuss the need to educate people about their constitutional rights and obligations in a democracy. In fact, this is another aspect of the seminars which makes the otherwise drab technical discussions not only lively, but even informative for those in the local public scene. And, discussions in Sindhuli proved the point when it veered off the course several times to discuss issues like the meaning and significance of a constituent assembly and a suitable method of carrying out its elections in Nepal. The seminar was chaired by Falguni Sharma.

Kicking of the discussions, NEFAS Executive Director Ananda Srestha made a brief introductory remark saying: NEFAS has been involved in development related issues since 1995 in different parts of the country. The objective of the seminar is to help strengthen democracy. The paper that is being presented by Shivaraj Dahal needs updating which will be done by including your experiences. The paper forms part of the book that is also a curriculum in schools. We have received numerous suggestions from other parts of the country. I am confident that your contributions will prove valuable.

Shivaraj Dahal quickly moved in to make his presentation saying that a lot of negative trends seen among today's youth was to do with the lack of sensitivities of the political sector in dealing with them. The theme of his presentation was that politics must be turned into game that everyone respects and not something that is perceived to be pursued only by social outcasts. Participation of the youth in the political sector can help reduce these negative trends. Once the right people man the responsible posts, things start falling into place.

After the presentation, Prof Ram Kumar Dahal deliberated on Civic Education and its Rationale for some length of time. "In contemporary politics of Nepal, we as political scientists see various issues like inclusive democracy and constituent assembly being raised these days. This has prompted us to develop ways to explain them to our students. In other words, new issues keep coming and we need to continually update ourselves with them. This updating of knowledge of the public sphere is what civic education is all about.

In developed countries, the state has institutions to continually update political and civic education among the populace. In our country too, we feel the need for structures that can take care of the need for civic education. We are just beginning by developing one in the formal education sector, but we must expand to the informal education sector as well.

In today's changed context, what should be the responsibility of the citizen? This is something that must be explored. There is a lot that needs to be done. The state must give equal importance to both formal and informal education. It is clear that unless we do that our political sector will continue to suffer.

The floor discussions that followed appeared to be brief, too brief, at first without much comments from the participants. This was strange for the organizers as most discussions over the years have seen sessions extended well into lunchbreaks and beyond the stipulated time. But the doubts quickly started wearing off when the several queries raised by the floor began to be answered by the presenters. Participants began counter-questioning leading to more discussions both among the participants themselves and with the panel of presenters. This happened several times, making it a unique experience for NEFAS in its scheme of holding seminars.

Most of the comments from the Sindhuli participants were unique as well. They wanted to know how the terminologies taken up in the presentations fitted in after the political change in Nepal where we find such words redefined by political parties according to their needs. For example, what would be the corresponding term for 'democracy' in Nepali? Or, participants wanted to know if some of the issues raised in the presentations, like religious non-discrimination do not have a place at a time when the reinstated Parliament has already declared Nepal a secular state.

The more interesting part of the discussion, which took place for a considerable length of time, was when a political activist wanted political scientist Prof. Ram Kumar Dahal, to deliberate on the constituent assembly saying that many were completely unaware about what it was. This led the professor to make another presentation, which was not on the original NEFAS agenda, leading to yet more discussions on whether the available models of the constituent assembly would serve Nepal's needs at present. If some thought that none of them could address Nepal's needs, others tried to see a linkage of the Nepali situation with each of them. For them, the South African model designed to end apartheid had close linkage with the need to end discrimination among the various castes and ethnic groups in Nepal. The model developed to establish a communist state after a revolution too had similarities with the Nepalese class struggles. Even post-colonial constituent assemblies formed to write a constitution for a newly independent state would be relevant for Nepal as Nepal too suffered from the hegemony of neo-colonialists and needed to come out of it.

Finally, the seminar was about to wrap up after Shivaraj Dahal was replying to the earlier queries when, once again, the participants broke off to discuss how to internalize the new technologies available and still retain national identity.

The discussions came to a close with the Chairperson's remarks from Falguni Sharma who said: Contemporary discussions in the context of democracy have generated a lot of challenges. We see that everyone is trying to address social discrimination. We see the need for active participation by the younger generation, something that the paper tries to focus on. This can be done through formal and non-formal education and we must reach the remotest of villages to explain to the people about their democratic rights.