| Maoists'
Janabadi education |
Janabadi
education is not a wholesale re-writing of history but rather omitting
parts of history, especially those dealing with the monarchy. The stress
is on scientific vocational education so that students "receive practical
knowledge to enable them to make a living." In Rolpa and Rukum very
few students had studied up to SLC. Most had dropped out in grades 5, 6,
7 or 8. For these young people, a scientific practical education was far
out of reach due to the mobile nature of the insurgency.
The
Maoists have big plans to impart Janabadi education, claiming to have established
over 35 Janabadi schools throughout the base areas in 2005. They
have also constructed one model Janabadi school each in the districts of
the base area. The Thawang model school building in Rolpa district
can house 40 children from grades 1 to 3. It is intended to be a boarding
school where children of Maoists who were killed in encounters and the
poor are given preference. The Janabadi curriculum had already been
finalised and the books were being printed. The booklet looked like any
school curriculum except that it emphasised Maoist philosophy and
the "people's war" .
The
Maoist Regional Peoples' Education Division' for Rukum and Rolpa
has issued its curriculum for Grades 1-3 in which students will
be asked to recognise the portraits of Marx, Mao and CPN-Maoist leader
Prachanda.
Students
should be able to recognise the flags of the communist party, the people's
council and fraternal people's organisations, to recite the full
names of the party and people's government and remember the names, place
and date of births and deaths of Marx, Lenin, Mao and the date and place
of birth of Prachanda. In Grade 3, teachers are asked to make sure
that students know the life story of Prachanda.
The
students in the Maoist strongholds have to learn about the proletarian
class struggle and its leadership and martyrs.
The
Maoists want to implement the new curriculum all over the country. |
