The works of Paulo Friere, Henry Giroux, bell hooks, Gail Omvedt, and Sharmila Rege have been foundational in thinking about the discourse and practice of teaching and learning in higher education. These thinkers have been prominent in shaping our understanding and practice of critical and engaged pedagogy. The driving emphasis of such works is to refashion and nurture the classroom as a transformative force capable of connecting the classroom with the outside – the socio-political, cultural, and ideological. The rethinking of the classroom as a democratic and inclusive space demands a reflexive approach to teaching and learning, mindful of the location, space and place of theories, and the positionality of teachers and learners. 

We borrow the title for this year’s conference from the book A Song Called Teaching: Ebbs & Flows of Experiential and Emphatic Pedagogies (2019, Delhi: Aakar Books), edited by Honey Oberoi Vahali. This is a collection of essays written by the teachers at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University, Delhi (AUD) who share their observations, questions, dilemmas, joys and frustrations and offer their insights on the need for higher education to be reflective, critical, and empathetic. We read their perspectives alongside our experiences of working as teachers at Ashoka University. 

Our objective is to build on the conversations on teaching and learning in Indian universities to help further a much-needed dialogue across different stakeholders in academia. Teaching at the university level in India has often prioritised academic qualifications, such as a PhD degree or the clearance of the National Eligibility Test (NET), without giving much attention to training in pedagogy. Presently, the focus on teacher training and development is overwhelmingly towards school education. While education, as a discipline and a professional field, is well-established in India, undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, and research programmes in education prepare teachers for school teaching with limited attention to university-level pedagogy. 

Our conference is especially timely for several reasons. The landscape of higher education in India is undergoing rapid and tremendous changes. While some of these are policy-level changes like the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020; others involve emerging scenarios like the shift to/encouragement of online education and the increasing use of AI. In the face of these changes, what is the role and identity of a teacher in Indian universities? How do the teachers in a university adapt and teach? What have been the contributions of radical interventions such as queer, feminist, Dalit, Marxist, and decolonial pedagogies? What part do writing centres play in this scenario? Grappling with these questions is not simply about the “what” and “how” of teaching, pedagogy and learning but involves addressing the very basis of what it means to be a teacher in institutions of higher education in India.

The Centre for Writing & Communication (CWC) at Ashoka University is an academic centre which undertakes teaching and research on the processes of reading, writing and communication at the university level and the relationship between these processes and broader questions of higher education in India. Our one-on-one consultations, workshops, and courses help the students with cross and inter-disciplinary reading/writing/communication needs, enabling them to critically approach the academic work required of them at the university. Additionally, our conferences and research projects examine questions of pedagogy, which in turn enriches our practice at the centre.