What we missed out in school: Civics

The state-wide protests by citizens in Tamil Nadu against the ban on jallikattu have largely been peaceful. In principle, this is a much desired act in Indian democracy as the citizens have upheld the spirit of the Constitution of India by registering their voices and their protest. However, while citizens assert their right to hold the traditional bull taming sport, demands like a ban on the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are paradoxical in nature. Had these protesting citizens understood the essence of the Constitution of India which guarantees every individual the right to liberty, would their take on PETA have been different? Definitely, Yes. Moreover, would their approach on the entire issue of lifting ban on jallikattu been different? Yes, again.

Such scenarios in which individuals, ideologies, and groups repeatedly find themselves at odds with each other are highly prevalent in India. It is imperative for us to perceive such situations through the lens of the Constitution. The question here is do we know our Constitution well? Has our Civics education in schools been successful in this? 

Civics education, where the foundation of citizenship is laid, is the gateway to a robust democracy. The famous political scientists, Sharon Cook and Joel Westheimer, in their essay titled ‘Democracy and Education’ state: “If people are not born democrats then surely education has a significant role to play in ensuring that democrats are made.” Universally, Civics education is required to build three skill sets of citizens: civic knowledge, participatory civic skills and civic dispositions. 

Is our Civics education being designed and implemented to build these skills? Sadly the answer is NO. In our experience of working with schools, we have steadily noticed that the Civics education has not been invested in or cultivated. The young citizen national survey conducted by the not-for-profit organisation “Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness” (CMCA) in 2015 confirms our observations and this surely signals a crisis. On one hand, we have students coming out of schools uninspired and ill-equipped with the information and practical skills needed to be active citizens. On the other hand, villages and cities face issues of poor governance that could be addressed through citizen engagement with state machinery.

The reasons for the current state of Civics education in schools are multifold. The first and foremost being the rote learning that still predominantly forms part of the Civics classrooms. The revised textbooks based on National Curricular Framework (NCF) 2005 do depict to an extant shift in the approach towards Civics education. However, at the implementation level; the curriculum is still being widely delivered by the methodologies that lead to retention of knowledge without any understanding and application of it. 

Furthermore, though NCF 2005 has taken brave steps in redefining Civics as Political Science, it still limits itself to the realm of civic knowledge and civic attitudes. An immense investment in Civics classrooms is required in cultivating the participatory skills which broadly include interacting, monitoring and influencing government processes. The irony is that our Civics classrooms very naturally tend to keep politics out of classrooms. Many of these issues could be attributed to the lack of capacity building of teachers. Civics/Political Science are perhaps the only subjects for which hardly any capacity building programmes of the educators are arranged and promoted. A very limited understanding of the role and scope of this subject paired with rote-learning practices has impact beyond the sphere of school education, as it poses a serious threat to the robustness of our democracy. A fundamental shift from Civics to citizenship education is the pressing need that all stakeholders in the arena of Civics education should make note of.  

Schools across India would have celebrated the Republic Day this past week. What is needed now is a greater emphasis on building the capacity of our young citizens to practice the promise which we made to ourselves 68 years back by giving to ourselves the Constitution.

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