When youth are not taken seriously...
 YOUTH: Have we really understood our younger generation? Why is this
generation detached from traditional social activism? Shouldn't they, as
future leaders of Sri Lanka, determine how to connect their civic
responsibilities with the social process? We have to find answers - very
fast.
The major grievance of the youth today relates to the society's
perception of their generation. They believe that their leaders are not
effectively addressing issues that affect them. They also believe that
the modern political and social activities are indifferent to the issues
that address the immediate needs of their generations. Naturally, they
feel powerless and separated from the social process.
Above all, today it is an accepted fact that the youth are not taken
seriously. The adult society views their generation as rebellious and
selfish. Yet the same society expects them to become an engaged
generation.
To develop meaningful engagement of youth in governance, and to
meaningfully give young people a voice, there has to be a systemic
change in the way in which youth are viewed. This change has to come at
the level in which policies are developed, and must be supported by
champions of youth who have experience in lobbying and in promoting the
benefits of youth engagement.
Good citizens
Lawyers and doctors are no more likely to make good citizens than
dropouts if their training is limited to the narrow and self-interested
world defined by vocational preparation and professional instruction. In
the same way, the youngsters preparing to turn their schooling to the
purposes of economic competition also must be able to turn their
schooling to the purposes of civic cooperation with their fellow
students in making democracy work.
If we are to rejoin education with liberal citizenship we have to
take "liberal" education seriously. Liberal arts education and civic
education share a curriculum of critical reflection and autonomous
thought.
If schooling is to be guided once again by its democratic mission, it
needs to be re-endowed with a sense of civic passion. To promote this
sense schools need to be as democratic as the civic ideals they wish to
teach, consistent with sound pedagogy.
This suggests cooperative learning where the efficient helps the less
efficient to the benefit of both rather than either tracking (where the
quick advance at the expense of the slow) or large, understaffed
de-tracked classes (where the slow advance at the expense of the quick).
The goal is not to level down but to secure "an aristocracy of everyone"
in which excellence is the common denominator.
This goal also suggests systems of secondary and higher education
that leave room for a role for students in governance and
administration.
To be sure, students are a transient constituency and their roles in
curriculum and performance review should necessarily remain extremely
limited. But in other domains their participation is not only feasible
but beneficial to the children and their educational institutions.
Simultaneously, such participation models the democratic culture we
presumably wish to teach.
Our schools are not social agencies but teaching and learning
communities: service should be an instrument of civic responsibility. In
serving the community, the young forge commonality; in acknowledging
difference, they bridge division; and in assuming individual
responsibility, they nurture social citizenship.
If it is to serve democratic education, service learning must be a
responsibility of everyone not just a requirement for the criminal or
the needy. Service is a universal entailment of what it means to live in
and enjoy the rights of a free society.
At the local level, the development of youth councils and community
decision-making practices is where young people should work to gain a
voice. Only when they have a say in the way in which their communities
are developed will there be any meaningful change in their lives.
There are key steps in this development;
(i) the Government must be convinced of the benefits of youth
participation in governance
(ii) young people need to be at the table during the development of a
national youth policy
(iii) ministries and departments must have youth staff and youth
representatives within their ranks
(iv) the national youth council, independent of, but in cooperation
with government, must lobby more effectively for youth voice, network
youth across the nation, and develop plans for future policy development
Only when systemic change occurs will we truly see a change. When
youth find themselves champions within the current system, change will
begin to happen.
The rights and freedoms of all Sri Lankans depend on the survival of
democracy. Only one road leads to democracy: meeting youth aspirations.
And in a democracy where freedom comes first, the first priority of
education must be the apprenticeship of liberty.
Tie every school reform to this principle, and not only education but
democracy itself will flourish. |
