The Jomtien Declaration (1990) of Education For All was a historic event. Not only did it set the goals of basic education, but it widened the scope of our understanding of the goals by including literacy and continuing education, not as an addenda but as essential part of Education Its plan of action was comprehensive and well thought out. However, in the ten years after the Declaration, we are still far from achieving the goals. It will be admitted that the picture is not very promising in the SAARC Region.

In 1992 and again in 1994 I had the privilege of working as Consultant to UNESCO, Bangkok to review the progress, or lack of it, in the implementation of Jomtien Recommendations in the Asia-Pacific region. Earlier as Regional Advisor to UNESCAP I had visited several Asian countries in the context of finalising the Manila Declaration on Social Development.

It clearly emerged that all the Governments and national and international agencies were fully committed to the goals of Jomtien Policy declaration. Plans and programmes were carefully and elaborately drawn up. Funds, while never adequate, were provided more liberally than ever before and many initiatives1 were taken. Yet the results were not commensurate.

1 INNOV DATABASE 1995 (UNESCO/UNICEF) lists as many as 112 projects in 44 countries as a follow up of the World Declaration of Education For All at Jomtien, Thailand in 1990.

The reason is that mere provision of education is not enough. Supply does not create its own demand at least in this sphere. The lack of demand can be seen in the large figures of non-attendance and drop-outs and deficiencies in achievement levels. What has been missing in several contexts is the relevance of education as provided to the lives of the people. Where there is relevance there could be no problem of demand.

This is well-illustrated if we look at the demand for English medium schools in urban and suburban areas of Delhi. There is tremendous pressure of demand as the upwardly mobile parents seek to provide best of education for their children. These children see in the English medium schools the door to future jobs and prosperity. They see education as relevant and worthwhile and are prepared to make any sacrifice for providing it.

Quite opposite is the situation in the rural areas. The same education that attracts the urban middle and even lower classes has little meaning for the marginal farmer and the land less agricultural worker. Education that is offered to his children is often seen as a waste. Also it is so alien to the socio-cultural context that learning becomes difficult and uninteresting, adding to the meaninglessness.

As early as 1921 India's great leader Mahatma Gandhi wrote,2

"The greatest visible evil of the present educational method, in itself evidence of deeper defects, is that it has broken up the continuity of our existence. The burden of social life is continuous and if at any stage one generation gets completely out of touch with the efforts of its predecessors or in any wise gets ashamed of itself or its culture, it is lost. The force that maintains society together is a series of high loyalties, loyalty to faith, calling, parents, family, Dharma. The ancient educational system in India certainly maintained the long tradition of pride and service, the place of every order within the body social and the body politic. It is equally certain that modern, foreign, non-national educational makes young people unfit for any useful function in life."
2 Towards New Education - a compilation of Mahatma Gandhi's views on Education, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1953, Page 29-30.

One might think that the year 1998 is very different from 1921 and in the world of Internet and modern communication there is a " World Culture " , interacting world wide and reinforcing each other. Therefore a world model of education would seem plausible and relevant to all.

Reality, however, is more complex. World wide travel and communication has no doubt created the Global village and the resultant globalisation has moderated the sovereignty of nations ; but it has also led to the assertion of several cultural identities both by and within nations, a renaissance where a thousand flowers of differing hues and fragrance bloom.

The spread of communications has meant the spread of new ideas, but it has also led to a rediscovery and respect for one's own culture and respect and tolerance for other cultures. It should, as a natural consequence, lead to giving respectability to local knowledge and wisdom, to myths and proverbs, to the folk tales, to the traditions, to the values, to the countless skills and knowledge possessed by the uneducated and the illiterate who had preserved the society for thousands of years.

The curriculum of basic education and literacy programmes all too often ignore the local treasure house of wisdom, skill and knowledge or at best pay lip service to them. The use of a few local names of plants etc. does not make curriculum relevant to the lives of the people. Local relevance should not be like icing on the cake; it should become the cake itself with curriculum and teaching methods growing naturally from the local culture and with local artisans and people being involved in teaching. It is this - and this alone - that will make education meaningful and participatory and elicit the participation and contribution by the locals. The aim of education must be understood in terms of fostering local culture and helping it to absorb other ideas, knowledge and skills and not in terms of imposing an alien culture on the people.

Education through cultural diversity rather than Education for cultural diversity expresses this sentiment. Fortunately, post-modernist thought is extremely helpful in developing this approach to education. Modernism was a by-product of 18th & 19th century. European thought and science, which separated mind and matter and emphasised "rationality" to the exclusion of other aspects of human personality and has resulted in the evils of industrialism, consumerism, materialism and militarism. It has resulted in increasingly destructive wars, much distress and conflict in individual and social lives, break up of families, promotion of greed and power politics, exploitation of nature, distruction of environment, ambivalence in values and dethronement of feelings, sentiments and emotions. Moreover Modernism is colonialist in conception and is intolerant of other views ; it treats non Euro-centric cultures with disdain and dubs as superstition that which it does not understand.

Fortunately, post-modernist thought de-emphasises all these aspects.3 It does not believe in the grand narratives of History, Progress, Nation, Superiority of Reason, Rationality etc. Post-modernists do not seek to impose an artificial uniformity. They recognise the validity of all cultures and all ways of thinking. To the extent modern education is a product of Modernity, it has been anti-culture and anti-values, despite its professed declaration to the contrary. We now need to develop new approaches in contents and methods that fit best with the post-modern way of thinking and also contribute to that thinking.
3 See Annex 1. For an extract from Nelson W.Keith's Comprehensive analysis " Reframing International Development : Globalism, Postmodernity and Difference " Sage Publications, 1997, Page 265.

Literacy and continuing education programmes can make a major contribution in this as they do not have the rigidities of the formal system. But for this purpose our "mindset "has to change, we must view local cultures from a different point of view and seek to preserve and foster them even as they absorb new ideas and images through the new powerful global electronic media.

It is not easy to do this. It is not easy to change our mindset. We all think what is good for us and true of us must be good for and true of others. We measure others by ourselves. But if we distance our minds from our own ideas and expose ourselves with genuine humility to other ideas and other cultures, we will be able to develop that broadness of vision, spirit of understanding and tolerance that is needed for education through cultural diversity.

Much good work in the production of relevant material for post literacy education has already been done by the Asian Cultural Centre, Tokyo, SEAMEO Institute at Manila, UNESCO PROAP at Bangkok and several Departments and Institutes of Adult Education in India and other countries. Yet it may not be incorrect to say that much remains to be done in terms of production of genuinely local materials inspired by local needs and produced by knowledgeable people of the community drawing on the community's own traditions. Even Anthropologists who go as outsiders " with empathy " often fail to catch the local spirit. Hence we must devise means for encouraging local articulation and production, oral, visual, and written and the modern media provide unique opportunities for this purpose, promoting new forms of knowing.4
4 See Annex 2. from the essay " Beyond Competence " included in the book - Repositioning Higher Education : published by Open University Press, U.K., (1997). Page 30-31.

One of my friends used to say that if you travel 50 miles by road from Delhi you will travel through five centuries ! You will see and absorb - if you have the time and patience - several cultures. The task in this country with its innumerable languages and dialects and cultures and sub-cultures is an immense one. Yet the task is easy in one sense as the local cultures have been preserved, partly because of the failure of modern education to penetrate and dominate the rural societies.

The problem really then is in the education of the Metropolitan elite who are aliens to their own cultures! Such education or reculturisation of the educated elites is essential. as they have power and influence in shaping the future. I now work with a large NGO (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan or the Indian Mansion of Education).It has 89 centres in India and 5 abroad. It provides modern education (secondary schools, job-oriented courses), but also tries to fill the cultural and value gap in modern education. When Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India visited the headquarters of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in 1950, he noted that it was a unique institution that covers "all aspects of life from the cradle to the grave and beyond............. it fills a growing vacuum in modern life "

We seek to do this both through education in the broadest sense and through publications5 on culture, philosophy, religion and the like. But the "vacuum " needs a lot of filling and more massive efforts - perhaps, a movement and direction in culture and communication.
5 Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan founded in 1938 by K.M.MUNSHI, writer, statesman and freedom fighter is currently headed by Shri C.Subramaniam, the eminent Indian Statesman and former Union Minister. Its Director General and Executive Secretary is Shri S.Ramakrishnan. Its Head Office is in Bombay and it has more than a thousand publications including 75 on Mahatma Gandhi. It is one of the largest NGOs with over 89 centres. See Annex. 3.

We live in a fast changing world full of conflicts. We need to promote "a culture of peace" and along with it what the Director General of UNESCO, Fedrico Mayor termed as the " Culture of Pace". He said, "We must be able to adapt to the pace of life. We must be able to anticipate events. This is the role of education. We must provide an anticipatory kind of education, so that we are not always adjusting to events but so that we can master our own destiny ."

That destiny is not that of man, who is but a small speck in the universe, but it is of the universe itself. If man acts in a manner as to sustain Nature and Universe, he would have done well. Preserving and protecting local cultures against the hegemony of the Metropolitan Meta narratives is a sure way of ensuring that progress and development do not become anti-universe and remain sustainable. Adult Education of all kinds provide the best means of achieving this transformation of education from a destructive to a constructive role - the role of preserving and fostering cultural diversity, peace and adaptability. Only thus, will Education promote genuine globalism and cultural diversities and family and societal values. Otherwise, greedy globalisation will prevail and enforce its "cultural values" with disastrous consequences.

Annex 2

Whether postmodernity is with us or on the horizon, forms of knowing take many forms in modern society. Society is itself directly in the knowledge business. The universities have lost their monopoly not only over the provision of knowledge services but also over the definitions of what is to count as knowing in modern society. More operational, pragmatic and action-oriented forms of knowing are called for : academic definitions are now challenged.

Forms of knowing

The academy has become, therefore, a site of rival versions of what it is to know the world; rival versions of competence, in effect. And the curriculum becomes the territory on which these rivals versions of competence are played out.

The contest can be captured by the following list:

knowing that	knowing how
written communication	oral communication
personal	interpersonal
internal	external
localized capacities	transferability
intellectual	physical
thought	action
problem-making	problem-solving
knowledge as process	knowledge as product
understanding	information
value-laden	'value-free'
discipline-based	issue-based
concept-based	task-based
pure	applied
proposition-based learning	experiential learning
individualized learning	group-based learning
holistic	unitized
disinterested	pragmatic
intrinsic orientation	instrumental orientation

The left-hand list terms captures ideas central to the traditional academic understanding of higher education, while the right-hand list suggests a newer set of ideas now finding their way into higher education. The left-hand list sees students development as a means of engaging with the established bodies of elaborated thought: the task for the student is one of coming to understand the world in a certain way, and being able to participate in its associated conversations. Writing, the process of engagement with others, the formation of a deep understanding, the framing of problems within disciplinary boundaries and a personal realization of the desirable attributes of disciplinary understanding: these are characteristics of the curricular components flowing from this conception of student development. In contrast, the right-hand list looks to effective action in the world. Problems are here posed by the world, and solutions are those which work pragmatically. Communication is more oral than literary and is more overtly inter-communication, but is oriented towards operations in the world. Activities have an instrumental quality, design to bring about other ends, rather than being seen as worthwhile in themselves. Learning becomes a product rather than a process.

This juxtaposition of curriculum themes and ideas should not be seen as a series of polar oppositions. These lists are not mutually exclusive. It is entirely possible for curricula to exhibit components from both lists.

(From the Essay " Beyond Competence " included in Repositioning Higher Education, Open University Press, U.K. (1997), Pages 30-31. )

Annex 1

The ideological impediments exist on either side of the Big Ditch - the one the metropolitan sphere, the other, the nonmodern and sometimes non-Western societies (members of the Other(s), as I have defined the concept). Almost out of habit, one ingrained by a culture of hegemonic superiority, the metropolitan world finds it difficult to reorient its thinking, even in the face of compelling evidence. As we saw in the case of " ecological modernization," the science of ecology has undermined much of the dichotomous thinking on which the man-versus-Nature dichotomy is erected. The summons is for the economic arrangements more in keeping with sustainability and a respect for the delicate ecosystems defining Nature. Yet the prevailing economic principle of technology for growth is so deeply entrenched as to command accommodation, as a matter of course, rather than the massive theoretical reconceptualisation required. The holes are predrilled; the task is to insert the pegs, which must all be, or made, round; if not, leave them out ! While the law of entropy, the revolt of Nature, and the depletion of strategic resources command a qualitative change of approach, theories, practices, and related policies remain intransigently aligned to modernity. In truth, the aphorism of Mark Twain is frighteningly apposite : The tool we have been using all along is a hammer, which explains why our problems appear unerringly as nails !

(Reframing International Development - Globalism, Postmodernity, and Difference by Nelson W.Keith Sage Publications 1997, Page 265.)

Annex 3

BHARATIYA VIDYA BHAVAN

Founded on November 7, 1938, nearly a decade before the advent of Independence, with the blessings of Mahatma Gandhi and the cooperation and support of several distinguished stalwarts of the India's freedom movement, the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan has grown, from small beginnings, into a comprehensive all-India intellectual, cultural and educational movement. It is totally apolitical. Its founder, Kulapati Dr. K.M.Munshi, looked upon the Bhavan as an ' Adventure in Faith ', a faith in India's past, present and future. It is also a faith in India's people who have a rich and unbroken cultural heritage.

True to its goal of revitalising Dharma or the Moral Law in its three-fold aspects of Truth, Love and Beauty - Satyam, Shivam and Sundaram - the Bhavan is ceaselessly striving to carry forward India's ageless message of Faith, Self-discipline and Dedication - Shraddha, Samayama and Samarpana.

The Bhavan believes that there are elements in all cultures which transcend all barriers and knit people together. Its ideal is : Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam : " The World Is One Family ". Its motto is Aa no bhadraah kratavo yantu vishwatah: " Let noble thoughts come to us from every side. "

During the 59 years of its existence, the Bhavan has blossomed into an ever-growing, voluntary, apolitical national movement with an international outlook, devoted to life, literature and culture.

The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan's multi-dimensional programmes are Studies and Research in Indology, Sanskrit and Indian Culture; Classical Languages and Ancient Scriptures; Colleges of Arts, Science, Commerce and Engineering, affiliated to various Universities; Institutions for teaching Modern Management and Research; Running of Schools from Pre-Primary to Std. XII affiliated to Central Board of Secondary Education and State Boards all over India to instil Fundamental Values of Indian Culture and National Integration among School Children; Research in Ayurveda; Institutions for Research in correlating Ancient Insights to Modern Discoveries in the fields of Science, Technology, Life and Health Science & Human Values; Institutions for Environmental & Ecological Management; Publications of Books on Ethical and Spiritual Values & Research; Publication of Journals devoted to Life, Literature and Culture; Publication of the Indian language editions of 11-Volume of ' History and Culture of Indian People ' as also the 100-Volumes of ' Collected Works of Mahatma', beginning with Hindi, Tamil and Kannada editions; Fine Arts such as Indian Classical Music, Dance, Drama and Theatre; Promotion of Yoga and Karate; Promotion of Astrology and Occult Sciences; Computer Education; Foreign Languages; Free Primary Health Services; Promotion of National Integration and Communal Harmony, Purity in Public Life and Rural Regeneration, etc.

Thus Bhavan's programmes cover "all aspects of life from the cradle to the grave and beyond ... it fills a growing vacuum in modern life " as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru observed when he first visited the Bhavan in 1950.

Contact Info:

J.Veeraraghavan
Director
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan