Paper short abstract:

The paper presents the story of an educational institution focusing on rural development in India through agroecology related courses. The story depicts the role of educational innovations to motivate youth across urban-rural divide to effectively engage in the rural economy.

Paper long abstract:

The economic relation between urban and rural areas is widely documented in the literature on sustainable rural development. Lesser attention is paid to how economic relations transform knowledge systems and aspirations. This paper focuses on the aspirations of the rural youth in the context of economic and ecological decay in India. While some farmers and organizations in India have been able to leverage the opportunities emerging from urban affluence for enhancing rural livelihoods, these have had limited success in attracting local youth. Creating an enabling ecosystem for a flourishing rural economy requires motivated and skilled youth to engage with the local context, instead of seeking precarious livelihood options in urban spaces. Gandhi's formulation of rural education encapsulated a socio-ecological consciousness relevant for agroecological practices. He advocated for an experiential learning system for socially relevant, practical education. The paper tries to explore, 1) Can these ideas build capacity of rural youth to participate in agroecological practices in India? 2) What are the opportunities or challenges for sustaining them? To answer these questions, the paper uses the case of Lokbharti Gramvidyapeeth. They have operationalized the Gandhian notions of rural education to design a vocational course on organic farming and created an alternative imagination of knowledge-centric urban-rural linkages by motivating rural youth to engage with opportunities in the rural economy.