Teachers' Training Programme on Jurisprudence, Dec. 15-19, 2017)

Teachers’ Training Programme on Jurisprudence was organised from 15^th – 19^th Dec’ 2017 by the National Law University, Delhi. The overwhelming response to the programme strongly establishes the absence of a national level engagement of this nature and emphasises the need for such efforts. Due to oversubscription to the course within 15 days of the announcement of the programme, the registration for the programme had to be stopped well before the period envisaged. The programme finally had 39 participants (excluding 11 participants from NLU Delhi) from both central and state as well public and private universities across India. Participants were drawn from 18 states of India.

With outstanding resource persons[1] the programme not only focussed on the substantive contents of Jurisprudence course but also pedagogy, learning and research in the subject as well as outside it as informing research and teaching of other subject areas of law. The programme offered a balanced mix of deep theoretical expositions together with training the participants in how to make teaching of a course like jurisprudence more engaging and enriching not only for the students but teachers as well. 

The discussions led to exploration of the expansive terrain of jurisprudence beyond the limited engagement with the so called ‘schools of jurisprudence’ which constrains the study of the subject. Meaningful engagement with Indian pre-colonial, colonial as well as post-colonial thinkers emerged as being crucial not only in learning and researching in jurisprudence but also in formulating and understanding contemporary issues. The exploration of the field of legal philosophy in the programme was grounded in social realities of people and sought to engage with it as a pathway to promote better understanding of these realities and offering ways to discover answers to the pressing questions that these realities pose. Different methods of engaging with jurisprudence not only as a separate field of study but also as a method of engaging with other subjects of law were explored in the span of one week. ‘Law Teachers’ Declaration on Jurisprudence Curriculum’ was the most significant, concrete and immediately visible outcome of the programme, which is expected to inform our vision of and engagement with jurisprudence in times to come.