Role of Church in imparting education in North–east

There is no denying that the Church has made significant strides in the spread of education in India’s Northeast. But what kind of education has the Church imparted? Has that education empowered its recipients to become trendsetters in social action and the pursuit of social justice is a question that begs for an answer. This was the theme dissected and discussed at the three–day national seminar on “Education for Social Change — Advocacy, Networking and Public Relations,” held at the Don Bosco Institute for Youth and Educational Services at Kharguli, Guwahati. In attendance were over a hundred administrators of Catholic Schools in different states of northeastern India.

It is not for the first time that Catholic priests and nuns have gathered together for a deep introspection into their own roles as providers of education. But this time they were asked some very earthshaking questions by resource persons who guided the seminar. John Dayal, renowned journalist and activist who had worked with some of the leading newspapers of the country, thundered that the Church must give up the notion that it can take on what the state has abdicated. What its educational institutions should do instead is enable students to become advocates for their respective societies “to care for what goes on around them and to pursue this selfless agenda with commitment and consistency”.