Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century

that materials produced locally and used by most Indian learners are still unlikely
to foster a critical engagement with issues relating to peace, sustainable
development and global citizenship. However, NCERT’s National Focus Group
position paper on ‘Habitat and Learning’ (2006b) makes several vital points
regarding the relationship between nature, livelihoods and educational inquiry.
It treats children as researchers whose own learning can generate micro-level
knowledge about the state of the environment. This perspective is reflected in
NCERT’s textbooks for environment studies and Social and Political Life (the
name given to the radically reconceptualised subject known as Civics under the
2005 reforms in India). Several lessons in these textbooks offer living instances
of social action on debates and conflicts pertaining to natural resources such
as lakes and forests, and on dams, roads, etc. (for further discussion see Gupta,
2015).
Figure 5.2 shows a few illustrations of some of the key debates on sustainability
from the many examples that we find in the Social and Political Life series of
textbooks for Grades 5-8. The complexity of these issues has been presented in a
way that it offers children an opportunity to develop their cognitive abilities and
engage with them in a nuanced manner.
Rethinking Schooling for the 21 st Century:
The State of Education for Peace, Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship in Asia
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