Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century

eak away from this approach by highlighting the political nature of citizenship
and the participatory nature of democracy (Gupta, 2015). This new approach
seeks to promote a more open model of citizenship, providing room for the kind
of reflective and critical thinking inherent in the notion of GCED. However, such
reforms have not percolated to provincial or state curricula and textbooks, and,
even at the federal level, the implementation of textbook reforms in teacher
training and classroom transaction remains incomplete. Meanwhile, older style
civics teaching, with limited scope for reflective, child-centred learning, prevails
across most of South Asia, notwithstanding some isolated and partial efforts
at reform. An attempt was made in Nepal, with the assistance of international
organisations, to improve citizenship education so as to prevent the recurrence
of violent insurgency. Similar efforts in Sri Lanka have taken place in the context
of peace-building after the end of the civil strife.
The coding data show that the sub-categories ‘nation as privileged referent of
identity’ (under attitudes, values and dispositions), and ‘culture and heritage’
(under interconnectedness) are highly prevalent in policy and curricular
documents analysed for South Asian countries (see Appendix II-10 and 12). This
points to a prioritisation of the role of education in fostering love for and pride
in the nation. For example, one of the main objectives of the Afghani Education
Law is to ‘Strengthen Islamic spirit, patriotism, national unity, preservation
of independence, and defence of territorial integrity, protection of interest,
national pride, and loyalty to the republic system of Afghanistan’ 76 (p. 2). Similarly,
this excerpt from a Grade 4 Sri Lankan Teachers Guide illustrates the importance
typically assigned to patriotism:
Being a citizen of our country where people live in harmony we have so
many duties and responsibilities. It is our responsibility to build up citizens
who respect the national flag and appreciate living in harmony with other
communities who live in this country with full of natural wonders to build
up a mature patriotic citizen who respects national identity with cordial
relationships and vivid creations from local materials. (p. 102)
Pakistan and Bangladesh present a rather different case of engagement with
challenges of curriculum reform in general and citizenship education in particular.
In both these countries, construction of national identity is seen as a major goal
of school education (Saigol, 2015). This goal poses a complex pedagogic challenge
because collective identity in terms of modern statehood has acquired a meaning
rather different from what it meant before 1971 when the two nations were one
and drew their identity from the anti-colonial independence struggle. Further
complexity derives from the difficulties these nations have faced in sustaining
democratic governance. Patriotism constitutes a paradigm that permits evasion
of unresolved issues of memory and identity-building in curricula and textbooks —
و لالقتسا ظفح ‏،یلم تدحو ‏،یتسود نطو ‏،یمالسا ۀیحور ۀیوقت‘‏ Dari: 76 Original in
یمالسا یروهمج ماظن هب یرادافو و یلم سیم اون و عفانم ظفح ‏،یضرا تیمامت زا عافد
‏’.ناتسناغفا
Rethinking Schooling for the 21 st Century:
The State of Education for Peace, Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship in Asia
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