Politics and diplomacy need to be taught to students from nursery to university level..
Article from Dr. Tamanna Khosla
Politics is one of the most important activities in the contemporary postmodern world. Politics is all around us from the nursery level to the level of world institutions. Thus students need to be prepared to deal with this not just at school and university level but also national and international levels.
What Role Academicians Can Play?
Academicians belonging to all streams and disciplines need to look and understand how politics not just affect students but also discipline itself.
So it is not just the task of political science academics to look at how students can be involved in Indian politics but also professors of other disciplines to make students understand how politics work in the subject, in colleges and at national and international level.
- Academicians need to train students in contemporary issues such as comparative politics, which means that it is taught to students to compare political issues in India and at the international level.
- Compare our country to that of other countries around the globe and learn from it. We need to study Indian critical politics and thinkers and compare them with western, east Asian and west Asian polities.
- After a comprehensive study of politics, students need to be instilled with a vision of Gandhi and enter politics focusing on non-violence.
- They need to be taught to believe in dialogue and deliberative democracy so that rival parties with different ideologies can come together and resolve seemingly irreconcilable issues. Student be it Left or NSUI or ABVP its not very constructive politics in universities. They have pitted one group against another. Rich against poor, upper class against backward class.
How Policy Makers can Imbibe Politics in Education System?
Politics in Course Curriculum
Politics need to be taught from childhood and it should be taught at the university level. Socrates and Plato, for example, sought to teach people of certain class philosophy till the 50s. So politics is a subject and a way of governance that can go on to be studied lifelong.
Thus it is a must that politics be taught in all courses from Humanities, commerce to science.
Internships with MP’s and MLA’s
Once preliminary academic knowledge of politics is gained, academicians can facilitate those students. This may include students who are wanting to improve India’s governance system to align themselves with political parties of their choice and work as interns working under MPs and MLAs to learn how politics actually work in India.
Encourage for Social Work
India as a diverse country has several problems and so by working under them, they can unlearn, learn and thus have a new vision on how to deal with these problems. Students need to learn in their classrooms that India is not just a land of the upper class, caste but also of poor and backward sections. They should be encouraged to do more of social work.
As I said earlier from nursery till university level politics and diplomacy need to be taught.
Then if one wants to take politics as a profession, political parties need to facilitate educating students about what I politics and how does it become functional in a ruffle of Indian politics. But not just Indian politics, students as interns need to be taught about diplomacy to see how politics works at the global level.
Institutions and academicians and teachers working either in schools, universities or political parties level play a very decisive role in building student character so that Indian politics and other institutions, such as universities, judiciary etc become corruption-free.
For more such article, news and more click here
