Department of Teacher Training and Non-Formal Education (IASE), Jamia Millia Islamia in collaboration with Comparative Education Society of India (CESI) organised a Panel Discussion on the theme ‘Urban Margins and Education’ on 27th November 2025 as part of a pre-conference event associated with the upcoming 15th Annual International Conference on ‘Education, Public Sphere and Democracy: Exploring Trajectories and Possibilities’ to be organized by Comparative Education Society of India (CESI) on 5th to 7th December 2025 in Miranda House, University of Delhi.
The panel discussion started with a brief introduction and felicitation of esteemed Panellists, Prof Jyoti Dalal and Dr Chetan Anand and Chair of the event, Prof Kulwinder Kaur. The former Vice-Chancellor, MANNU, Hyderabad, Prof Mohammad Miyan also joined the programme and was felicitated during the event. Dr. Naziya Hasan introduced Prof. Jyoti Dalal (Professor, IHE, DU and President of CESI) and Dr. Andleeb introduced Dr. Chetan Anand (Assistant Professor, Azim Premji University and Member of CESI). Following this, Mr. Mohd. Zuber introduced the Chair Prof. Kulwinder Kaur.
Prof. Jyoti Dalal discussed an interesting topic ‘Education along the informality-Illegality continuum in an urban slum’. She started by highlighting informality and illegality and its connection with urban slums. She shared that the ideas she shared are outcomes of her research studies done between 2017-2022. She spoke how informality is associated with urban slums like bastis and unauthorised colonies. Her discussion explored how school’s children and basti’s children are seen differently. She mentioned that urban planning in India has been quite informal in nature where cities are planned by deregulation. She shared the experience of a jhuggi-jhopdi which is divided on the basis of caste and class. She expressed that margins become the sites of exploring how state functions. Her focus was on how education can be helpful in enhancing their status in societies. She also shared a reference of Jacques Derrida particularly Kafka’s story.
Following her session, Dr Chetan Anand spoke on the topic ‘Speech, politics and recognition: A study of urban poverty in a Delhi slum’ where he took a case study and highlight how the trajectories of poor students’ lives are getting changed due to the discrimination and malpractices being followed in formal school system. He further discussed about two frameworks to look at urban poverty-one to see urban poor as lacking and the other is to see poverty as a site for exploring politics and education. He also emphasised that poverty should not be treated as a material scarcity. Urban poverty was highlighted and discussed in a critical and reflective manner.
After the insightful discussions by two panellists, Prof. Kulwinder Kaur shared her concluding remarks highlighting the underlined tension between formal and informal; legal and illegal; desires and real aspirations among the marginalised. She mentioned the kind of freedom the marginalised feel despite existing deprivations.
Following remarks of Prof Kaur, some relevant questions were raised by faculty members and research scholars. The discussion was extremely productive and thought provoking for all the participants. The event ended with a vote of thanks proposed by Dr. Tarique Anwar from the Department of Teacher Training and Non-Formal Education, JMI.
