Re-imagining curriculum in India: Charting a path beyond the pandemic

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has made visible the sharp economic, health, caste-based, gender, and educational inequalities that the disadvantaged face in India. Curriculum is ordinarily viewed as a tool for regulating and adapting modern educational systems to society’s needs and trends. But most governments have been unwilling to rethink post-pandemic education, despite the loss of livelihoods, food, and shelter – accentuated by educational inequality and institutionalised via neoliberal reforms. The current pandemic compels us to examine the meanings and purposes of education from a socio-historical perspective, to understand how questions of equity and justice, rooted in India’s Constitution, can be woven into curricula and pedagogic approaches. This article reflects on the role that curriculum can play in enabling an ecologically and socially just and connected world. This curricular response includes cognising the significance of subaltern disciplines and imagining transformative pedagogies that can help reclaim education spaces and sustain epistemic justice.