In the wake of 2030 agenda of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also
called global goals, education sector has continued to remain a hotcake
in the development debate of the contemporary globe. Given that, the
actual fulfillment of one of the 17 global goals needs other ones to be
fulfilled properly; educational goals are not only limited to goal
number 4. This adds to the product selling of established
(International) NGOs, more heavily, in the forefronts of their operation
- the developing world.
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) projects of UNESCO can be
regarded as yet another rhetoric that have been parallel with the
development goals of UNDP (from MDGs to SDGs, and maybe further, if the
hypothetical doom of 2030 spares the humankind). While educational
approaches have been regarded as key instruments for achieving the
global utopia, educational institutions in the global South have been
failing to consolidate the generation, that actually has the potential
synergy. Apparently, the danger of strong (and growing) polarisation
between privileged- and marginalised youth has been always been
overlooked because of the glossy fronts of perpetual collaboration
between the privileged class and the International NGOs.
The game has been straightforward for International NGOs. They are not
required to cover the overwhelming population, for their products to
sell. What they need is comfort in producing the successful reports with
some super-achieved outcomes. For instance, not many executive figures
of such INGOs have deep concerns over deepening polarisation among
Nepalese youth. Poor, mostly rural and disadvantaged in terms of
quality and quantity of essential services have been at extreme distance (in terms of collaboration) from the
mostly urban youth from affluent families.
Urban schools, affluent parents and ease of communication in English
language are such characteristics of such privileged youth, that help to
maintain quality of glossy productions of successful (I)NGOs' projects
in youth - English language, urban environment, art, education or
whatsoever.
Deep ecologists, or let's say critical theorists might certainly be
against such bubbles of symbiosis between privileged Southern recipients
and ignorant resellers of Northern savior's (so called) objectives. It
is also convenient that the mostly westernising, urban youth are easy to
be brainwashed with Western ideals and standards; so that the
productions in projects can be compatible to the demand of project
owners with some head offices located across the Atlantic or the
Mediterranean. Otherwise, the Other (yes, Edward Said's 'Other') group
could already pose opposition right from the ideological loci. A class
in the UK could be finding trouble to co-learn 'Black History Month' in
October without understanding the situation of rural Nepal where almost
all students could be busy in harvesting plantations for the year. The
teachers could not be easy to be in touch, when needed. Difficulty in
communicating in English, should be another con.
While writing this, I must agree that mostly urban, private schools of
Nepal have been evidently regarded as factories to produce raw materials
for supplying semi-skilled and skilled manpower to the Western world.
Since, the western world has been relatively viewed as superior,
civilised and distant; the school community of public schools (and their
unlikely collaborators) could have internalised that their schooling
efforts could not be compatible for Western education projects to be
launched. Such mindset is enough for maintaining divide between these groups of youth-students.
More alarming is that nothing has been attempted to consolidate the
youth in same country; crossing the divide of urban-rural, affluent-poor,
marginalised-advantaged, failing school-successful school; for moving
together towards the frontiers of sustainability fronts.
Dipesh Dulal
The author is an edublogger at http://www.nepaleseteacher.org/ , and student at University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway.
