Establishing Peace In Conflict Zones: Need For A Paradigm Shift
In The Total Transaction Of Education
By Dr.Swaleha Sindhi
17 August, 2015
Countercurrents.org
Introduction
The purpose of education goes beyond the propagation of knowledge. Time has come for Peace to be an integrative perspective for the school curriculum. Education for peace is different from peace education. In the latter, peace is a subject in the syllabus. In the former, peace becomes the shaping vision of education. This implies a paradigm shift in the total transaction of education. Education for peace is education for life, and not merely training for a livelihood. Equipping individuals with the values, skills, and attitudes they need to be wholesome persons who live in harmony with others and as responsible citizens is the goal of education for peace. The National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2000 and National Policy on Education (1986), states that there is an “erosion of the essential social, moral and spiritual values and an increase in cynicism at all levels.” Against this backdrop, the framework advanced a plea to integrate value education into the curriculum. The framework prescribed an integrative approach.
The integrated approach is to be understood from two angles. In the broader sense, integration occurs when all the activities of the school, curricular as well as co-curricular, are geared toward education for peace. At the classroom level, peace dimensions are woven into the contents of the lessons, which are treated also as means of helping students to imbibe peace values. Here, emphasis is not merely on acquisition of knowledge but also on the process through which peace is achieved. The integrated approach has an edge over the “separate subject approach” from a number of points of view—psychological, motivational, and pedagogical. From the cognitive and developmental point of view, constructivist psychology has established that children construct knowledge holistically. When knowledge is embedded in appropriate contexts, it becomes more meaningful and enjoyable for the learner. In the integrated approach, the lessons and topics become the vehicles to convey peace messages in meaningful contexts. This approach not only makes the subject matter wholesome and situated but also motivates students to learn and to relate what they learn to their own settings.
Pedagogical Skills and Strategies for Teachers
The common pedagogic goal of our school teachers is completion of syllabus and conducting examination. In peace-oriented pedagogy the focus is not merely on retention of concepts, memorisation of texts, or achieving individual goals and excellence but on learning to reflect, share, care, and collaborate with each other. Teachers need to deliberately plan every topic/lesson to be transacted. There is scope in various subjects may be hidden or explicit component of peace, teachers need to take advantage of this and teach the importance of adopting peaceful means of resolving disagreements and conflicts and reducing violence. Thus by using participatory creative, child-centered and participatory approach of teaching teachers can create appropriate learning experiences for students. Involving students in discussion, debates, presentation, and group and cooperative projects, some peace values may be more appropriately inculcated.
Promoting Peace in the Conflict Zones
In the conflict zones of India where millions of children are deprived of quality education and several new and emerging fatal challenges are to be addressed, the government machinery along with other agencies catering education in the country can take the responsibility of providing quality education and facilitate peace building, harmony and brotherhood.
Educational agencies be it religious minority organizations, the missionaries or the corporate that supports educational institutions under corporate social responsibility (CSR) or the Army all these agencies have the responsibility of promoting education in the conflict zones. The real purpose of education is to train youth to discharge the duties of citizenship properly. All other objectives are incidental.
In this context it is important to mention the role of Armed forces in promoting peace through education in conflict zones. Their sincere effort certainly has changed the discourse in terms of empowerment, mainstreaming and above all quality education. Army has initiated Education in the conflict zones and is working with the broad objectives of providing avenue for people-sensitive education and making sure that schools are established in inaccessible and school less areas. Army schools especially the Goodwill schools work with an intention to develop future leadership for post-conflict society and bring about a dynamic social construct. Army schools are not dominated by traditional hierarchical structures but by dynamic networks and the demands of local and global cooperation in promotion of sustainable and safe environment, they incorporate concept of peace in the curriculum, school policy, school ethos and values, interpersonal relationships, effective partnerships with parents and services in the wider community.
Conclusion
Schools are potential nurseries for peace as school education involves the formative years in a person’s life, and help to build a strong foundation. Due to rising conflicts it is very important that there is a growing awareness today that propagating a culture of peace through education. Since education for peace is to be integrated into the curriculum, much depends on the availability of adequate instructional time to teachers to practice this integration. Education for peace calls for a vastly different approach to teaching as compared to what is in practice now. Teachers have to be creative, innovative, and enterprising in their pedagogic approach, all of which can be suppressed if teachers are overburdened or underpaid. We need an education that does not convey the message of imposition, overt or covert but promotes the emotional integration of the people.
(Dr.Swaleha Sindhi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Administration, The M.S.University of Baroda, she can be mailed at:[email protected])
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