JULY 22, 2016
It is a known fact that education has a great potential for bringing peace in conflict zones. Education can play a constructive role in development of peace building perspective and thereby promoting socioeconomic development and preventing the recurrence of violence. But unfortunately in the recent violence in Kashmir, when all the educational institutions are closed down, there is hardly any concrete plan or action undertaken to bring education back to track or strengthen stakeholder coordination or initiate, promote and implement educational initiatives in support of peacebuilding. On the contrary newspapers carried angry reaction of the disturbed Director (School Education) Mr. Shah Faisal, who threatened to resign from his post. It is heart touching and seen by many as an emotional outburst of a vibrant Youth Icon, (first to qualify Indian Administrative Services) from the Valley.
Being an academician I feel very sorry and deeply touched by the pain of this officer. I feel very regretful that we have failed miserably to motivate the brilliant brains. These young brains have potential to do wonders in their work area and thereby promote peace in conflict zones. Not going into who is responsible for this agony of Mr. Shah Faisal, I feel it is high time we all act responsibly and not hurt sentiments of people to the extent, that they lose their inner peace, as it is simply inhuman. Instead of including all levels of society in peace building and preparing a strategy for post conflict, it is regretting that the Director of Education is compelled to think about resigning from the post.
It is a fact that all stakeholders, from the department of education to the civil society have a role to play in building a lasting peace or at least make an effort towards it in Kashmir. Peace-building measures must target all aspects of the state structure and get a wide variety of agents for its implementation. Agents, who would advance peace-building efforts by addressing functional and emotional dimensions in specified target areas, by enhancing the capacity of citizens, especially youth, to think critically about the present and the past, so they can foresee and construct a better future. There is a growing body of Academic research giving evidence that the vast majority of young people can play active and valuable roles as agents of positive and constructive change. In fact, many in conflict zones already do, but their contribution goes unseen or is simply overlooked. However, the role of young people is critical in creating long-term stability and offering protection from future conflicts. What we need today are youth as agents who can facilitate and support peace building.
Also, variety of the community specialists, including lawyers, economists, scholars, educators, and teachers must be involved in contributing their expertise to help carry out peace building efforts. In case of Kashmir or any conflict zone, it is ultimately the internal actors who can play an integral role in building peace and rebuilding normalcy, because it is the internal actors who are vulnerable to conflict, and have in some way experienced the conflict and live with its consequences personally. Therefore an appropriate approach to building peace is to build a solid structure of relationships with the intervention of key political leaders, military officers, or religious leaders and to build a peace community. It is believed that the greatest resource for sustaining peace in the long term is always rooted in the local people and their culture. Building on cultural resources and utilizing local mechanisms for handling disputes can be quite effective in resolving conflicts and transforming relationships.
It is important to understand that where the opportunity of education has been lost due to conflict, it is not just a loss to the individual, but a loss of social capital and the capacity of a society to recover from the conflict. (Smith 2010). Only education can provide route other than violence. Education can help re-establish ‘normality and schooling can help return a sense of normalcy to children’s lives and restore faith in a state’s ability to provide services for its citizens. Hence there is a dire need of educational interventions in the conflict zones to give young people a sense of direction and purpose for giving their contribution towards building a peaceful society. As education’s influence can extend beyond the school to support broader transformation in the security, political, social and economic sectors and a change in relationships and behaviors from the negative to the positive.
Thus, time has come that initiatives like; community peace projects in schools and villages, local peace commissions and problem-solving workshops, and a variety of other grassroots initiatives are undertaken by linking all the actors. As the issue of bringing peace through educational interventions in conflict zones is not the focus of any single agency or organization but it requires the contribution of all actors specially the youth, who are a hope for the society. In my personal interaction with youth of Kashmir, I have found them to be very vibrant and full of new ideas, very hardworking and dedicated towards their goals. Though they are very upset with the system but they must never forget that where there is a will there is always a way. They have potential to bring a very positive change in the society. So the young intelligent officers like Mr. Shah Faisal and many more must take the charge of initiating education and peacebuilding programs and make a peaceful impact on conflict dynamics.
We have great hopes from you Mr. Shah Faisal and from many more young brains in Kashmir. Keep doing the good work.
Dr. Swaleha Sindhi currently teaches at the Department of Educational Administration, in The M.S. University of Baroda, Gujarat, India, she has a long Teaching and Administration experience in School Education and has received the Best Teacher Award in the year 2007 for Excellence in Teaching. Her doctorate is in the area of Quality Assurance Systems in Secondary Schools. Her current research follows two core themes: Quality Assurance in Education and Policies in Secondary Schools besides other areas like Comparative and International Education, Girls Education, Educational Management and Economics of Education. Dr.Sindhi has also been writing columns on education theme in newspapers and journals and has more than thirty two research articles to her credit. She is the Vice President of Indian Ocean Comparative Education Society (IOCES) and a Life Member of Comparative Education Society of India (CESI).
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