Educators, policymakers and famous personalities gather in Goa for an annual conference tackling the vital issues facing South Asia

Day 1
The fourth edition of Difficult Dialogues commenced today with the focus on ‘Education: Illuminating Myriad Facets’, which will see leading experts and academics discuss

education

policies in India over the next two days on 1st and 2nd February. Difficult Dialogues, an annual forum examining critical issues in

South Asia

, founded by philanthropist Surina Narula, has previously highlighted issues around India’s position in a globalised world, health and gender equality.
The inaugural ceremony had in attendance the Hon'ble Governor of Goa Smt. Mridula Sinha, Varun Sahni, Vice Chancellor, Goa University; Surina Narula, Founder and CEO, Difficult Dialogues; Paul Flather, Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford University; Yatin Kakodkar, President, The International Centre Goa; Dr. Constantino Xavier, former fellow Carnegie India; executive committee members and a distinguished audience.
The chancellor of

Oxford University

Lord Chris Patten said in a video message that he felt that the Asian economic miracle which refers to South East Asia (China) was in large part because of strides made in basic health and education and so it was important to "get the basics right" with better primary education in India.
The evening programme at Goa University’s auditorium also saw a lively interactive session on ‘Educating Minds – Changing Mindsets’. Moderated by Anurradha Prasad Shukla, Chairperson & Managing Director, News-24. The panel discussion set the tone for the remaining two days of the forum and served to engage the audience in a conversation about issues surrounding the education system in India.
The

speakers

on the panel were: Arif Mohammad Khan, former Cabinet Minister in the Union of India; Deepa Narayan, International Poverty, Gender and Development Advisor; Manjushree Patil, India Country Director of Samanta, a sister organisation of THINK EQUAL - UK and Founder Director of Aatman Academy; and Renuka Chowdhury, Indian politician and a member of the Indian National Congress.
Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury said “The three As of education are affordability, accessibility and availability… In the last five years, the budget for education has actually declined… The government of India needs to wake up and realize that true progress lies in investing in education, not arms.” She also added, “One student per hour commits suicide in India. The terror of exams is very real.”
Deepa Narayan, researcher and the author asked, "When you think back about school, what emotion comes up? I've been asking this question for many years and people don't respond with a positive response."
After the panel, a member of the audience brought up that Goa University doesn't have an education department and Vice-Chancellor Varun Sahni explained that Goa is a small state and Goa University is the only public university, but they are getting a School of Behavioural Studies, which will have education as part of it. In addition, they are also getting a School of Sanskrit and Indology Studies, and have requested the state government for a law school as well.

Day 2
It was an eventful and exciting day two at the Difficult Dialogues forum which took place at International Center Goa. There were a total of six panels where Leading experts and academics shared their views on education policies in India. The panels were on Building World-Class Universities, Value Education, Education for All, Financing of Education, Skilling Education and Elementary Education.
At a panel about Elementary Education member of the political committee, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) who are widely recognized for improving the standard of public education in Delhi said “What has really changed is that there is political will, where the Government in power cares about Private schools. Someone should research the links between politicians and private schools. Arvinder Singh Lovely is a politician who owns a private school. If the people in power have incentives in private education then why would they improve public education?”
Dr. Yasmin Ali Haque, the UNICEF Representative in India, said on a panel about the financing of education, “Only two per cent of the education budget is spent on teacher training so we're not spending on the human resources for this sector. Government funding is being supplemented by CSR or grant funding.”
Dr. Sukanya Bose, Faculty at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi, said there is no financial roadmap in place for financing education which would lead to what was laid out in the Right to Education act of 2009. There are around 146 million children in the public education system and 15 million outside the system, which is the government’s responsibility to bring them back. So there is a need to spend 1.5% more of the GDP.
In a discussion about value education, a professor of Hindi from the University of Delhi Apoorvanand Jha, said, “We should fight majoritarianism… The value of nationalism is being imposed on students by the current government.”

Day 3
The last day of the three-day forum on education policy,Difficult Dialogues, began with spirited discussions on new threats to academic freedom such as professors from public universities who have been suspended for their views, which were considered anti-national, under the current government. Experts also talked about the evolving role of technology in education, the counselling of students suffering from mental health issues, the challenges of creating a curriculum for a diverse country like India, and including communities to strengthen school management committees.
Speaking about ‘New Threats to Academic Freedom’, Hindi Professor Apoorvanand Jha of Delhi University cited many examples of professors including Anand Teltumbde from Goa, who have been arrested, hauled up or suspended for minor reasons that have been branded as anti-national or anti-army. “This culture is new… the majoritarian, Hindutva view. The branding of professors Nivedita Menon and Romila Thapar (is serving to) dumb down universities. The threat is this party BJP and it's parent RSS which has been rallying against academics. What's new is this organized attack on intellectuals.”
The panel was moderated by Dr. Paul Flather, Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford University and the other speakers were Dr Bhushan Patwardhan of the University Grants Commission, Dr. Manisha Priyam of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) and Prof. R. Sudarshan, Dean of O.P. Jindal Global University.
In another panel discussion about ‘Curriculum and Pedagogy’, Srinivasan Vadivel of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) talked about the challenges of creating curricula in India. He said the Indian school curriculum is the most burdensome in the world and the most burdensome subjects are maths and sciences, but no one talks about how students are committing suicide because of this burden. “What the world teaches children, later on, we teach them much earlier. But rather than reducing the burden, parents want us to include more so that students can get better jobs.”
Speaking about technology, Rajive Kumar of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) said, “A computer science teacher who was employed 15 years ago may not know about the internet of things so we are organizing refresher courses like in artificial intelligence and block chains which will help them get promotions also.”
Clifford Desilva of the Goa Institute of Counselling and Sanjay Gupta of NGO Chetana, while discussing ‘Education and Mental Health’, expressed dismay that students who are not in sound mental health face discrimination in schools, corporal punishment and even resort to substance abuse.
PLAN India’s Poonam Mehta, Kumar Pratap, Head of Cap Gemini CSR, Dr Sharad Sinha of NCERT and Rashmi Misra, Founder of Vidya schools, stressed the importance of including communities in strengthening school management committees in India’s government schools. Speaking about the drastic change in many of her students from underprivileged backgrounds, Rashmi Misra of Vidya said, “We train our kids to become ambassadors. As they say, it takes a village to educate a child. We know the dropout rate is very high in our country so we use new methods, for example, in slums in Mumbai where fathers and children do science experiments together.”
A multi-city college debate competition called Daring Debates, moderated by actor Pooja Bedi, on the topic, ‘Is the Indian curriculum and its teaching methods redundant?’ was won by Anmol Kang from Manipal Institute of Medical Sciences in Gangtok, Sikkim, and P. Lokeshwari from Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences. The final panel discussion, moderated by prominent TV journalist Barkha Dutt, questioned ‘Should Religion Be a Part of Education?’ and ended the fourth edition with a very engaging conversation between additional solicitor general of India Pinky Anand, former cabinet minister Arif Mohammed Khan, Clifford W DeSilva, Director, Goa Institute of Counseling and Dr. Neelam Kaur, of the Akal Academy.
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