Question : PEACE STUDIES IN SCHOOLS

(a) Whether a proposal to start `peace studies` in schools has been received from UNESCO;

(b) if so, the details thereof including content of the studies and the mode of introduction thereof; and

(c) The Government’s response thereto?

THE MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT (Dr. MURLI MANOHAR JOSHI)

(a) to (c) A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.


STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO THE LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 339 TO BE ANSWERED ON 16.04.2002 REGARDING PEACE STUDIES IN SCHOOLS ASKED BY SHRI SUSHIL KUMAR SHINDE


No formal proposal has been received from UNESCO to start “peace studies” in schools. However, educationists from India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka at the Conference on Curriculum Development on Peace Education organised in Colombo by UNESCO in January, 2000 had recommended that peace education should be an integral part of the general education of all children in their own countries and South Asia at large. In pursuance of these recommendations a Teacher’s Guide to Peace Education has been published with UNESCO support. It was launched in India by UNESCO in collaboration with the Parliamentarians Forum on 11th March, 2002.


2. This is an attempt to encourage Member States of UNESCO to formulate policies to institutionalise and implement the peace education programmes in their respective countries. It clarifies the scope, goals, core values and concepts of education and suggests a thematic model on which a school education programme could be designed, implemented and evaluated. This programme is basically a character building intervention based on a human, civic, moral and spiritual value system with stress on developing peaceful living competencies in children. Besides identifying characteristics, attitudes and skills necessary to be a Peace Teacher, it provides learning activities useful for educating peace and points out ways of infusing peace values, attitudes and skills in the formal teaching and learning in the class room along with the ways of eliminating violence in school, in all forms.


3. Elements of peace education have always formed part of the Indian education system. The National Policy on Education lays considerable emphasis on value education by highlighting the need to make education a forceful tool for the cultivation of social and moral values. The policy states that in our culturally plural society, education should foster universal and eternal values, oriented towards unity and integration of our people.


4. The school curriculum in 1988 was designed to enable the learner to acquire knowledge to develop concepts and inculcate values commensurate with the social, cultural, economic and environmental realities at the national and international levels. The social values aimed at were friendliness, cooperation, compassion, self discipline, courage, love of social justice, etc


5. The National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2000 also provides that the schools must strive to restore and sustain the universal and eternal values towards the unity and integration of people, their moral and spiritual growth enabling them to realise the treasure within. It provides for value based education which would help the nation fight against all kinds of fanaticism, ill will, violence, fatalism, dishonesty, avarice, corruption, exploitation and drug abuse.


6. This Guide to Peace Education could be used to supplement our efforts under the Education in Human Values Programme in our Schools. It is proposed to prepare a brief version of the Guide suited to the Indian conditions alongwith model Teaching & Learning Material (TLM) for use in our DIETs in the Teacher Training Programmes.