Peace Education in the New Millennium
EDUCATION, 16 Feb 2026
Surya Nath Prasad, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service
Need and Importance
Peace education is essential for human survival in the New Millennium. It is needed for individual, national and global peace. In the world of physical and structural violence, peace education has a great importance because the form of peace education has to be compatible with the idea of peace which excludes direct and structural violence both. Peace Education has relevance also in this age of exploitation because it teaches about justice which is the parent of peace. Peace education is also a necessity in the era of selfishness because it teaches about altruism, which is itself peace. Peace education is also significant in today’s world of xenophobia and intolerance because it teaches about tolerance which is understanding that means respect for diversity and acceptance of differences. At present, peace education has a great demand in the world of violation of human rights everywhere because it conscientizes the learners towards their total situations which enable them to fight for their liberation.
Necessity of Peace Education in All Branches of Knowledge
Different branches of knowledge have produced scientists, doctors, engineers, lawyers, mathematicians, etc or in other words, a variety of specialists, but they failed to make them humane, just, nonviolent and peaceful. Truly, these specialists are illiterate in other field of knowledge. And the basic reason for exploitation and oppression is that to some extent we are all illiterate. It is matter of degrees. Some are most, some are more, some are much and some are less literate, and many are illiterate. Some are literate in one field of knowledge and some are in another. And each one of them exploits each other’s ignorance. This is why mostly doctors exploit patients, lawyers exploit clients, teachers exploit students, producers and manufactures exploit consumers, and other professionals exploit the persons who come under their dealings, and common illiterate masses are exploited by all types of literate.
But peace education program and peace studies can help these specialists to experience life as a whole which enable them to become more just, non-violent and peaceful. And those who attain fuller life through peace sciences would be integral men and women. They can have the capacity to germinate in the family, in the community, in the nation and the world; they can act for the welfare of humanity, and they can develop the feeling of unity among the followers of different ideologies. Therefore, peace education, apart from, as a study of separate discipline in Peace Institutes, Peace Colleges and Peace Universities, must be part and parcel of all different of branches of university education.
Meaning of Peace Education
Peace education is a broader discipline. Disarmament education, human rights education, environmental education, education for non-violence, education for international understanding and global education are the branches of peace education. Peace education is more than an alternative to war education. According to the World Encyclopedia of Peace (1986), peace research is concerned with the development and accumulation knowledge; peace education is concerned with the development of the processes on education in and about peace, whilst peace studies as an area of concern relates to the substantive issues regarding the purposes and problems of the dissemination of peace as process. In my opinion, peace education concerns with peace ideas, peace studies (peace researches) and peace activities. And thus, peace education programs and peace studies come under the broader purview of peace education. Thus peace education deals with conflicts arising out of aggression or war situations; and also arising out of injustice or exploitation. Peace education is a science, which studies the basic needs of men and women, and the true nature of society in which these needs are to be satisfied, and awares the learners towards human rights and structurally violent and non-violent societies. Peace education enables the learners in creating a Culture of Peace, which helps in building a non-violent and just society. According to Christoph Wulf, peace education deals with conditions within society which foster violence even including elements of violence in the family and the school system. I view Peace Education as National and International Defense Education while Johan Galtung considers Peace Education as National Security Education.
Peace Education: A Universal Religion
And Peace: A Universal Value
Thus the future of peace education is bright because its co-initiators are also ready to become martyrs
to face the problems of the exploitative, oppressive and violent society to the universal cause of peace to mankind everywhere. Though the members are very small of such peace educators, the reality is that any great mission has been achieved by the efforts of a few dedicated and devoted persons to the mission.
Therefore, in future, peace education would have a place in schools, colleges and universities including out-of-campus courses of all nations of the world, and everybody would be a learner of justice and non-violence, and he would become peaceful to maintain peace in the society, and he and she would keep him and her perpetually on learning justice and non-violence. And in result, every society would be perpetually just, non-violent and peaceful, and the world society would also automatically be the same. Thus, in future, Peace Education would be a Universal Religion, and Peace a Universal Value.
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Excerpts from the Speech of Dr. Surya Nath Prasad, then IAEWP Secretary-General given at the 1999 International Conference of University Presidents on 13 October 1999 at Olympic Parktel, Seoul organized by Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea from 10-23 October 1999.
Dr. Surya Nath Prasad, Former President of the International Association of Educators for World Peace (IAEWP), Retired Professor of Education (India), Former Visiting Professor at Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Peace Education: An International Journal. dr_suryanathprasad@yahoo.co.in
Tags: Education for Peace
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 16 Feb 2026.
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