ISSUE BASED LEARNING

ISSUE BASED LEARNING

Education that aims merely at the development of skills needed for productive activities is possible only in a simple society. The society today has become complex and sophisticated through millenniums of social evolution. Here, learning often promotes the existing social hierarchy and structures. It assumes that the aim of education should be the welfare and development of all. At the same time, it neglects and ignores the needs and issues of the downtrodden in the society. The learning system often does not promote realizations of these issues and prepares the learner mentally to accept things as they are. We can understand this if we look at how learners change after they come to schools with an inquisitive mind-set. When we boast of our literates and well educated people, we do not realise the role of our learning system in enslaving us as members of a consumerist society. Our present approach to learning doesn’t question the inequalities and injustices prevalent in our society even though it professes and pretends to uplift and develop all. Needn’t this approach be changed?

Learning and Social Reformation

Social reformation can also be achieved through education. The slogan of the Renaissance period, ‘Get enlightened through knowledge’ points out the role of education in social liberation. Based on this aim, the educational system of Kerala could develop beyond the divisions of the society based on class and caste. We have the responsibility to develop education to suit the times. Everyone should get opportunities to grow and develop. Hadn’t there been social inequalities, we could have provided such opportunities to all. The social inequalities still exist. The society lives in a social, economic and cultural environment developed through millenniums. Our greatest challenge is to implement a learning system that could ensure opportunities for all. This should not be a dream that never comes true. The privileged classes can easily achieve their ends whereas the under privileged will continue to remain in their original state. As a result the aim of social development will remain as a mirage. Therefore certain planned prioritizations and changes are necessary to ensure social development of all classes.

What should the new system of learning provide?

A learning system that aims at social reformation should provide opportunities:

• to work for social justice

• for balanced and judicious development

• to generate better citizens

• to promote a nationalistic spirit

• to promote consciousness of rights

• to promote an understanding of science and technology

• to promote logical thinking

• to realise and develop one’s own culture

• to develop vocational skills

• to assimilate social and democratic values

• to promote self-reliance

• to resist injustice

• to take up leadership in the construction and exchange of knowledge

• to promote critical thinking

The learning materials and principles of education that could be used for social reformation have to be selected carefully. There are two schools of thought in this regard. Some argue that we should develop the knowledge and skills needed for social change through the present system of education. The learners would then naturally work for social change. The second school of thought argues that we should sensetise the learners about the numerous issues faced by our society as the learning material itself. Then the learners could intervene directly in social changes along with their education.

The first school of thought has some reservations. It dissociates between the aims and processes of learning. Therefore a learner might fail to link the means and ends of his/her education together. For example a person who has learned the principles of swimming from books can’t swim. The book on swimming becomes useless not because it doesn’t deal with swimming, but because it doesn’t contain the real spirit of that human activity called swimming. Hence the approach of the first school which dissociates means from ends is not effective. We cannot achieve any serious aim by following this method.

The process of education that aims at social change should be through social interventions themselves. We do not have any precedents or prior experiences of this approach. We are treading a new path that could qualitatively improve the educational scenario of Kerala.

We have included social issues as the content of the new curriculum. It is a challenging task to bring in various social issues into the framework of formal education. In order to take up this challenge in its true sense, we will have to design a locally maneuverable curriculum. Also we have to consider the affinity of our contemporary society for informative learning while we try to implement an issue based approach.

Our social life consists of physical, social and cultural spheres. Each of these spheres has numerous problems. When we examine these problems, we can identify certain common sources that generate a set of problems. The genetic issues that could commonly be identified throughout Kerala could be subjected to detailed analysis and study through the curriculum. These genetic issues dealt with should have a bearing on all the spheres of social life. For example, we experience floods and land bursts throughout Kerala during the rainy season. But our experience of the summer season is often water scarcity and drought. When we analyse this common experience of Keralites we can see that it is due to lack of scientific management of land water . We can list down such issue domains that affect all spheres of our lives.

Issue domains that are felt throughout the state

• Lack of scientific land water management

• Issues related to agriculture

• Lack of cohesive universal vision

• Lack of human resource development

• Lack of cultural consciousness

• Lack of eco-friendly industrialization and urbanization

• The issues of the marginalized

• Issues related to health and public health

We can trace the roots of many social problems that we encounter in these issue domains. Each of these general issues has many locally specific variants. We cannot address all of them through our curriculum. However we can help the learners develop a method for approaching each of these issues.

These issues are developed and sensitised using various discourses which provide a linguistically rich environment in the classrooms. The learners are to develop a linguistic competence to intervene in the social issues. They have to deal with the problems and formulate their ideas, opinions and attitudes about them. The issue based curriculum should ignite thoughts and activities among learners. Moreover they should be able to intervene in the thoughts, activities and perspectives of the people around him. Learning of this kind becomes a linking of experiences with a social aim. Thus education can become more fruitful than ever before.

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