Shripad Dabholkar

The theme of the workshop was to juxtapose the`Critical pedagogy’ of Freire for raising political awareness (conscientization) and the pedagogical methods of Prayog Pariwar to develop resource literacy.

[4] Shripad A. Dabholkar was an educationist who aimed to shape education as a tool for total change in the life situation of an average worker in rural areas.

Dabholkar worked as a professor of mathematics for 25 years at a rural university Mauni Vidyapeeth which was founded by J. P. Naik as a pilot project with the motto “Development through Education” and with funding from the Central Government.

Dabholkar grew dissatisfied with the formal schooling which often did not connect with the real-life situations, and with the limitations of conventional academic system which tended to exclude many capable individuals with a stamp of failure.

Dabholkar started his work in Tasgaon, a village in Sangli district in Maharashtra, with a core group of farmers including Mhetre, Arve, Patil.

The central thesis is that without depending on foreign aid or imported technology, economic development can be achieved by experimenting farmers and by common individuals in their own neighborhoods by assimilating latest science.