Education is the main way to change society

Do you see any logical development in your career from being a science teacher in London to being the recent Director of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Peace and Sustainable development?

I think it was to do with being in the right place at the right time. Actually, I am an ‘accidental’ teacher because, originally, I had no intention to teach. As one of the awardees of the Indian National Science Scholarships I went to the UK in 1963 to do a Ph.D. But the professor I was supposed to work went off to America and I was left with no way of supporting myself.

At that time, there was a shortage of science teachers in London so I thought I would try to get a job. The Inner London Education Authority people interviewed me, and even though I had no teaching experience or training, they appointed me as a supply teacher.

That’s when I got rooted in education. At that time in London schools there was a very strict ‘streaming’ system. Most of the children who were black, mainly West Indian, were put in the bottom stream or class, and once you were put in the bottom stream you never came out of it. These children went through school without taking any examinations and would leave without having any certificate. I felt very uncomfortable about this.

By the time the children in this bottom stream were 14 or 15 years old they were very difficult to handle. Just trying to teach them was a very stressful experience, which is why many of their regular teachers took frequent leave. Consequently, as a supply teacher I had to supervise these students for maths, English and science. The latter, in particular, was very challenging because at that time we used to keep acids in the laboratory and these students used to run around and throw things at each other.

At first, I didn’t know what to do with them. But then I told them I would put them in for the science exam. And not only would I put them in for the exam, I would make sure they passed. At first they couldn’t believe it, nobody had treated them like this before. But then they decided to work for it.

However, my decision created a big problem with the other staff. They said we can’t have a supply teacher putting these students in for an exam because now they are harassing us and saying we should also put them in for other exams. More importantly, I was also accused of wasting public funds because the examination costs were paid by the education authority, not by the students. There was a big staff meeting about this. I said that if wasting public funds was the problem, they could take the cost of the examinations out of my salary and, if the students passed, they could reimburse me. They had no answer to that.

So I gave these kids extra lessons after school, and they showed a lot of commitment. But, still, I wasn’t sure if they would turn up for the exam. In the week before the exam, I was ringing them up every day reminding them of the day and time. I even told them that if they couldn’t get a bus to the exam centre, they should take a taxi and I would pay for it.

On the day of the exam, most of the other students turned up in casual clothes. But my kids all wore suits; it was as if they were going for a wedding. This was a big day for them: this was the first time they had ever sat for an exam.

And they passed! That did them good, but it also did me a lot of good because my name became quite well-known. Within two years I became head of department. Later I was asked to chair a national working group on multicultural science because black children were underperforming in English schools in science: in fact, they were completely switching off from sciences. The reason, we discovered, was that the sciences were being taught in a very Eurocentric way – the perception was that only Europe and America had contributed to the advancement of the sciences – and so there was a feeling in the black community that science was something foreign. Our working party published a number of books where we stressed the Arabic and African contributions to science, and now this approach is part of the general curriculum.

Do you see education as one of the key ways of transforming not only individuals but also of changing social attitudes?

Yes, I see education as the main conduit through which societies can be changed. I mean in terms of changing social and economic inequalities.

Bringing those students through to the exam was a very formative experience for me because I realized how many young people were being prevented from getting a proper education. Nobody was trying to include them; actually every effort was being made to keep them out. Initially I thought it was only a humanitarian issue but later on I changed my thinking. I realized it was also an economic issue because if these students were prevented from getting a good education, many of them would naturally gravitate towards crime – the jails in England had a disproportionately high number of black children – so we were excluding a perfectly capable workforce from generating income for the country.

Later you became, until 2009, Director of Education for UNRWA/ UNESCO , which provides education for half a million Palestinian refugee children based in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza and the West Bank. You were dealing with some of the most disadvantaged people on earth. How did your educational work help them?

I introduced a course called ‘human rights, conflict resolution and tolerance’ for the Palestinian children. The mullahs objected, saying it was ‘Americanization’ of their culture, and they told all the teachers not to teach this course. But I called a meeting of all concerned and explained that if the children did not know their rights, how could they stand up for them? And how could they do it in a way which would not lead to more conflict?

The mullahs did not attend the meeting, but the teachers agreed to teach the topic and it is now one of the best human rights programmes in the world. Of course, children do not change overnight, and it is difficult for these children to change profoundly unless you remove them from their present environment.

By this I mean that only when people have the basic securities of food, shelter and health does peace becomes possible. Economic stability will come through sustainability of the environment and resources, and peace will come when people’s basic security needs are being met.

But changes did take place at the individual level. For example, in Lebanon some parents came to thank me for the human rights programme. One mother explained that she had always been having arguments with her daughter, but the conflict resolution class had completely changed their relationship. Now the father wanted the girl to get married but the girl had refused, saying she wanted to get a degree, and the mother was supporting her. So evidence like this shows that education can bring change.

Do the Israelis teach their children a similar course?

No. When I asked them why not they said that their children already know their rights: the teachers do not see themselves in need of anything other than what they are doing at present. The Israelis accuse the Palestinians of intolerance and of being violent. The Israelis told me, we hear you’re doing a very good job, so can you please tell these Palestinians not to be violent? But the Israelis teach their children no less violence, although they do it more subtly. And so the agony continues on both sides.

In the long run I think only education can solve this intractable conflict.

How did you become involved with the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development?

For some years there had been talk about building this institute in Delhi. It is a UNESCO Category I Institute. UNESCO has created seven such institutions all over the world, but this is the only one which carries the name of a person. The aim of the Institute is to contribute to peace education and the sustainable development research in countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The Government of India contributed $40 million to this project.

UNESCO contacted me and said they wanted somebody who understands the Indian culture and who is an educationalist and administrator. I became the interim Director, initially for six months. But Dr. Karan Singh, who is India’s representative on the Executive Boatd of UNESCO and who later became Chairman of the Board of the Directors of the Institute, kept saying he would like me to take the job permanently. I couldn’t do this but I stayed for 18 months during which time I decided policy, vision, the staffing structure etc. Now they have appointed a new Director, Dr. Anantha Duraiappah, who is a very able man.

Peace and sustainable development are not always studied together.

Correct. There are a lot of organizations doing peace education, and many organizations focus on sustainability, but they are rarely studied together as a cohesive package. This will be the most important work of this Institute. Sustainability thus far tends to be championed by the environmental movement, but they largely ignore the human development side of sustainability – social inequality, injustice, poverty. Yet all these social evils are the main cause of the lack of peace.

It is important to note that the area covered by this Institute comprises 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Two thirds of humanity live in this region, the largest number of conflicts occur in this region and more than 50% of natural disasters happen here. So if any area needed conflict resolution and to learn how to become sustainable, which means, most importantly, the human development side of sustainability, then it is this area.

This is a huge task. How will the Institute set about it?

It is basically a policy formulation unit advising governments. One of its responsibilities is advocacy, creating a platform for debates about peace and sustainable development, and promoting education as the main vehicle for bringing about peace and sustainability within societies.

This implies a radical overhaul of traditional education.

Yes. The problem with the present system of education is that it is inadequate to deal with these issues. There is a recognition that something has to be done, but ministers of education tend to focus only on the five years between elections. Besides, they have a system of education that has been running for many years, that has millions of textbooks, and they don’t want to unsettle that system. Therefore our approach has to be pragmatic, changing a little at a time.

Moreover, most ministries of education see education only or largely in terms of schools and colleges. But the change I am talking about – which is primarily a change of mind-set – has to happen through informal education and non-formal education as well, and throughout life.

But when you look at the challenges the world is facing today it doesn’t seem there is much time to make these major changes.

There is not a lot of time to convert people into this way of thinking. For example, the consumption of natural resources by humans is at a very high level. This is why the Institute has to focus on college students as well as the primary sector: we cannot wait for the primary children to become adults.

As to the influence of education, people in my role have to be optimistic. Technological change happens fast, social transformation takes longer. This is why educationalists have to take a long perspective. Take the situation of the blacks or gays. At one time, nobody thought that slavery would be abolished or that gays would be accepted in society.

But there are moments when mindsets change, mutate, rapidly. England came close to a social mutation when Diana died. English people who never express their emotions were crying on the streets. The destruction of the Berlin Wall is another example. Nobody thought that that would disappear within 24 hours or that this would have such an impact on German society.

I think the main role of education is to expose people to formative experiences like this. You don’t change people by diktat. Real change has to come from within, and the job of a good educationalist is to expose people to experiences that make them reflect and then change from within.

What part do you see Auroville playing in this?

The Institute is creating a database of all the good things that are happening around the world concerning peace and sustainable development. Many organizations like Auroville do small projects, and the intellectual property they create gets lost when the project is finished, so there needs to be a central depository of the best practices to inspire others.

In this line, I will meet the Director of the Institute and I will tell him about the uniqueness of Auroville; that this is an international community which has come together to build something for humanity. Auroville has the added dimension of spirituality. What I also find in Auroville is a kind of resurrection of the old methods of sustainability that are about human equality and people respecting nature.

Ultimately, Auroville has to be experienced. One of the key aspects of the Institute’s work is engaging young people in sustainable activities. We have a special youth programme and I would like to involve Auroville in this. The Institute also offers scholarships for people from the 42 countries in this region to do research on peace or sustainability. I think they could be brought here for a week because Auroville will provide a very positive experience for them. They will see what is happening here and this will make them reflect on their thinking.