The International Seminar on Secular and Democratic Education held at Thiruvananthapuram from 4th to 6th December, 2008 has been impressive, in terms of the scale of participation, the diversity of ideas discussed and shared and the degree of consensus that emerged through a process of debate and deliberation.
The three day seminar spread across three special lectures, five thematic sessions and twenty two parallel sessions has witnessed animated, informed and stimulating discussion among more than 3000 scholars drawn from within the State, from different parts of the country and the world. The participants have been engaged in the search for a paradigm of democratic and secular education that would lead to inclusive and sustainable development, in an atmosphere of peaceful coexistence.

The seminar noted with concern the continuing influence of the colonial past and caste structure on India's democratic and secular practices during the last sixty years of independence, the divisive experience of which has been accentuated by the projects of privatization, commercialization, liberalization and globalization, imposed upon the country by the ruling elite during the last two decades. The economic gains that the country claims today has brought into sharp focus the increasing divide in segments of society across classes, castes, regions and gender, sustained by the rhetoric of inclusion and the practice of exclusion, along with the cooption of the unintended beneficiaries of the new order through trickle-down effect.
The participants of the seminar have underlined the need to preserve and strengthen the positive features of Kerala's unique experience on account of its increased relevance in the contemporary world.
The participants of the Seminar have analyzed the nature and extent of these opportunities and challenges in great detail. The opportunity is to share the fruits of development by sharing knowledge, by extending the facilities for quality education for all at all levels through greater public investment and greater social control over private investment. The challenge is to resist the temptation to permit the monopolization and commercialization of knowledge through knowledge delivering supermarkets which could adversely impact both on equity and quality, by denying opportunities to the poor and by marginalizing the study of mother tongues and basic disciplines that have no immediate market value.
A large number of participants have suggested that the project of democratization of knowledge would necessarily involve democratization and decentralization of academic governance structures and curriculum transactions, within a framework of autonomy coupled with accountability. This would imply radical changes in the existing system of pedagogy in which the teacher plays an instrumentalist role of delivering knowledge to the client student. This relationship between the teacher and the student will have to be replaced by a more co­operative, collaborative and creative relationship among partners who would engage in a joint exploration of knowledge, undertaken in an atmosphere of mutual trust and love. This could lead to the development of a learner inspired curriculum that would take care of the differential needs of the learner, including that of the differently-abled, in a spirit of celebration of differences, within a system of shared common values, helping to transform the teachers and the students into organic intellectuals of the people.
The Government should also initiate steps to revise the regulatory framework relating to the governance of educational institutions, in such a way as would combine autonomy with accountability in order to enable them to fulfill their educational objectives and social obligations. The long term project of establishing a transformative education system which could usher in a truly inclusive society, which is inclusive of all classes and creeds and gender and ensure sustainable development should also be initiated by the present Government, by taking the first steps towards introducing the neighborhood school system and establishment of collaborative learning clusters at the collegiate level.
The Seminar calls upon all participants to carry this positive message of the South to the North, to the West and to the East and to all corners of the global village, with a view to transforming its existing relationship of hegemony and exclusion into a new wholesome relationship of harmony and inclusion.