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The Planning Commission, Government of India, has just constituted a Task force to make recommendations to ‘strengthen community engagement of Higher Education Institutions’ for the 12th Five Year Plan.

Subject: Re-affirming Civic Engagement of Education

Around the world, two phenomena have suddenly gained attention of political, economic and social leaders of our times. The first, of course, is the intensified, vocal, visible and powerful citizens’ movement—from Senegal, Thailand, India, Tunisia, Egypt, UK, Chile—everywhere. At the base of these movements are youth—young people from all strata and spaces of society. The message from these citizen movements is clear—the young citizens want to be engaged in the democratic development of their societies and communities.

The second phenomena is the increasing—rapidly increasing—demand for post-secondary education in all its myriad dimensions, forms and contents. Millions of aspirants are queuing up for enrolment, only constraints being cost, quality and delivery. Educational administrators, planners and policy-makers are yet to figure out how to respond to this surge and diversity of demands from all societies.

Common element in these two phenomena—citizens’ movements and demands for post-secondary education—are the youth today. Irrespective of the percentage of young people in a society’s population, the young are a differently thinking, feeling and acting lot. Most existing institutions in modern societies—governments, businesses, universities & colleges—are not able to understand or cope with the aspirations of the young.

Is it possible to combine these elements in a manner that the young get opportunities for meaningful engagements in societies? This is where civic engagement by post-secondary educational institutions can make a difference. By creating opportunities for civic participation and engagement during the period of education in such institutions, the young of today—and tomorrow—can become an integral part of democratic development of all societies. Thus, institutions of post-secondary education can find new ways of promoting learning and education of their students—and teachers—through creative forms of civic engagement.

Several interesting developments are happening at this time as I write about it. First, many national governments and policy-makers are beginning to think of devising appropriate supportive policies in this regard. The Planning Commission, Government of India, has just constituted a Task force to make recommendations to ‘strengthen community engagement of Higher Education Institutions’ for the 12th Five Year Plan. Similar initiatives have come lately from Malaysia and Tanzania.

Several globally established educational institutions have also begun to convene dialogues and conferences on this and related theme of civic engagement of universities. Global University Network Innovations (GUNI) is planning its annual conference and book on this theme for 2012; British Council is convening an international conference in March 2012 where this theme is centrally included. Such platforms and forum create opportunities for sharing best practices and workable models.

Most importantly, several networks and alliances have emerged in recent years which are exclusively and largely focused on community-university partnerships. The Talloires Network of university presidents began in 2005 with the intention of promoting civic engagements of universities; it now has more than 200 universities from 60 countries as its members. Its new publication—The Engaged University—is an excellent collection of community-university partnerships from around the world.

Another network is Global Alliance for Community Engaged Research (GACER) which began in 2008 to bring together various networks of academics and practitioners involved in community engaged research efforts from within and outside the universities. GACER has just completed a book entitled ‘Global Knowledge Democracy Movement’ where community-university research partnerships from around the world are analysed. The Science Shop movement in Europe began more than a decade ago where natural science and engineering departments interacted with the community to address practical problems faced by the community; its large European network is very active now—the Living Knowledge Network.

What does it all mean? It poses questions about the manner in which educational institutions connect with the larger society of which they are a part. This connectivity can take several forms. It can promote students’ placement in community projects—like service learning; it can entail joint research projects; it can also imply bringing the community’s knowledge and expertise inside the university; it can promote reforms in the curriculum and pedagogy through community partnerships; students and their teachers can also learn how to work with communities around them as facilitators of new learning and knowledge, not as ‘arrogant intellectuals’.

Leadership from within the universities and other post-secondary education providers is critical in promoting and nurturing such a movement for civic engagement. What can be done to support such leadership?

Rajesh Tandon
September 19, 2011