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Conference Concept Note and Programme
Conference Concept Note and Programme
Organised by
1
Concept Note
This conference is being organised in the background of/occasioned by the publication of the
co-edited book ‘Education, Teaching and Learning: Discourses, Cultures, and Conversations’ (2023,
Orient Blackswan). The book is a festschrift to honour and celebrate Prof. Krishna Kumar, a much
admired and loved teacher, who retired from the Central Institute of Education (CIE), University of
Delhi and his scholarship that critically examined and theorised education and teaching, their
everydayness, routines and minutiae with reference to their historical antecedents, contexts, ethos and
contemporary forms and contests. Its contributors are among Prof Kumar’s students and
collaborators. The introduction to this book reflects upon the discipline as it has developed in India,
from pre-colonial times to the present, reflecting on the place of teacher education, claims to being a
discipline and methodological and theoretical shifts. In the course of researching and writing this
chapter, it became evident that a wider engagement with the shape, form and direction of the
discipline is both valuable and worthwhile, helping us understand the discipline as a form of inquiry
and action, as well as, contestations on its disciplinary claims and tensions in reform. These are tied
to institutional and individual histories, as well as, developments and scholarship within the discipline
and in interaction with other disciplines, varied actors and sites of action.
The Conference aims to initiate wider reflection of the discipline of education in the contemporary
moment. The contemporary juncture and discourse of education in India is marked by both
coalescing, and transformations of various prior tendencies, fractures, goals and institutions. A new
vocabulary of reforms is reframing education and teaching with participation of new actors– global,
national, and local, with coalitions of research and advocacy in the policy domain. Beneath these
shifts lie sharp contestations about the idea and purpose of education, teaching, and knowledge and
their relationship/locations in democracy, nation and the global. In the last two decades we have
witnessed developments in the shape, and direction of the discipline, being given form in specific
institutional contexts within Higher Education: with new sites and programmes for educational studies
emerging in the landscape. This conference aims to bring together scholars and academics to reflect
on and try to theorise the contemporary phase of discipline formation. The sessions of the conference
are planned to historically situate, and theorise the state and discipline of education with attention to
its embeddedness in and relationship with political economy, democracy, nationhood, and culture.
The conference is planned around the following sessions and concludes with a valedictory address by
Professor Krishna Kumar.
Session 1: Institutional formations of the Discipline of Education
The shaping and making of the discipline in higher education institutions in India, reflection of
the place and influence of teacher education, historical and contemporary disciplinary enactments
at MS University Baroda, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, Central Institute of Education, New Delhi,
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Regional Institutes of Education (NCERT), Azim
Premji University, Bangalore.
Examining the development of the discipline and disciplinary discourse with specific reference to
Hindi. Teaching and learning educational concepts and ideas in and from vernacular resources,
and response to changing profile of who comes to study education.
2
Programme Schedule
9.30am -10.00 am Registration and Tea
10.00 am-10.20 am Inaugural Session
Chairperson - Professor Nargis Panchapakesan, Former Dean, Faculty of Education,
University of Delhi
Guest of Honour - Professor Krishna Kumar, former Director, NCERT & former Dean,
Faculty of Education, University of Delhi
Welcome and Introduction to the Conference - Professor Azra Razzack, JMI
Introduction to the Book – Professor Padma M. Sarangapani, Tata Institute of Social
Sciences
Book Release – Education, Teaching & Learning: Discourses, Cultures,
Conversations. (Essays in Honour of Professor Krishna Kumar) by Professor Nargis
Panchapakesan