Date:05/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/05/stories/2008120551020200.htm

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Of three Ds and education

Staff Reporter

— Photo: S. Gopakumar.

Common cause: Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan with social activist Swami Agnivesh at the inaugural session of an international seminar on education in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Social activist Swami Agnivesh has called for the incorporation of “three Ds” (doubt, debate and dissent) into the education system of the country to make education a transformative and liberating process. He was addressing the inaugural session of a three-day international seminar on ‘Democratic and secular education Kerala experience’ that got underway on the Kariavattom campus here on Thursday.

Every child should be an agent of change who questioned racial, gender and social prejudices. The education system in India failed because it did not address effectively critical questions on religion and religiosity in society. What was needed today was a radical approach to education.

However, the nation had not been able to make education a fundamental right even after all these years. The education Bill that was now before the Parliament was “too little, too late.” “Can this seminar pass a resolution demanding the right to education be made a fundamental right and send it to the UPA government? If there is not going to be a Bill we should demand an ordinance,” he said. To protect democracy and secularism, the nation should think of introducing a common school system or a neighbourhood school system, something that was repeatedly proposed by many a commission on education, the Swami said.

Children in India did not have real freedom of religion. Here, when a child was born, he or she was branded with a religion and a caste. “The priest is waiting to pounce on the child to brand it,” he said.

Why cannot children be given the freedom to remain free of religion till they are 18 years of age? Only through proper education could we create a casteless society. The government of Kerala should consider giving some incentive for children of inter-caste marriages while admitting them to government schools, he said .