Redefining Education in Seva Mandir?

Today I was sitting with the education people, facilitating a discussion about Seva Mandir's vision in the context of 'education'. I must say that I am impressed by the quality of the discussion that took place and the readiness of the team to push the boundaries of their own program and to question everything that they are doing. Most commendable!

The education program -like many of the others, I suppose - faces a lot of challenges from all sides. Explaining things to the outside world is one of the big challenges that Seva Mandir faces - I guess that's price of having one's own ideas!?

A major part of our discussion today went into trying to understand exactly what we mean when we talk about 'quality education'. These are the kinds of questions that we sat with:

• What are the qualities we would like to see developed in the children as a result of receiving education?
• What kind of an education is rural society in need of?

We ended up producing a nice list and there were a lot of questions as to how much of it we are presently doing and how much we would be able to do. But here is some of what came up:

• Different forms of literacy (beyond just maths and Hindi - e.g. personal health, livelihoods)
• Sensitivity to gender, caste and other forms of discrimination
• Moral values and trusteeship/responsibility (for environment, family, community)
  
• Curiosity and capacity to ask questions
• Logic-based education based on the children's interest
• Political awareness (and what does this mean in the context of children?)
  
• Development of leadership skills

Getting this straight seemed like the first step before getting into our vision. Although we didn't get through to the end of it, the vision seems to include a little revolution. And, though I don't want to count any chickens before they hatch, there appears to be hope that there is interest in seeing some deep changes in what has, up till now, been called the 'non-formal education centre (NFE) program'. This is the emerging picture (as far as I can perceive it):

NFEs get a redefinition. Firstly, rather than preparing children to get better grades or better jobs, the focus shifts to the idea of creating responsible citizens. We would be looking to nurture citizens who are free from gender and caste bias and who see themselves as stewards of their community, of their environment and the collective well-being of their future. Secondly, the NFEs will be places that disseminate values within the community - like a kind of hub for the values that Seva Mandir stands for - truth, respect, community, dignity, trusteeship... and so on. This will entail linking with all the other children's spaces, concerned stakeholders (youth, parents, committees, etc.) and platforms at the village level and seeking, pro-actively, to spread the knowledge and values to the rest of the village through these platforms and other processes...

It's admittedly still a little fuzzy but it's out there buzzing on the fringes of the team's collective field of consciousness... There's a lot more mind-grinding required to figure out just what this thing on the horizon might actually be but there's also a readiness to engage in a long-term (3 year!) action research process (to be carried out in a small selection of centres) to really figure it out. Part of this process is thinking up a new name; something that will also radiate a new message!

There's plenty more to the education program that I'm not blogging here - both discussed and yet to be discussed. If this level of creativity and openness sustains itself across the rest of the discussions we have the recipe for something rather fabulous! For now though, I will pretend that nothing special is happening - only to save myself from the risk of getting disappointed! My biggest concern is that although the education team believes in what they are talking about, they might not yet have the confidence to stand behind it and defend it. Let us see what emerges