History of Indian Education

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In this book the educationalist will get the knowledge about Society's early phase of development of education with laws. But, later, formulation of laws changed the concepts themselves. In fact, it is acknowledged by almost all scientists that formulation of concepts is as important, if not more, as formulation of laws. Concept formation is intimately connected with language competence. The development of science over the past hundreds of years has brought us to a situation where the scientist is no longer sure about the nature of the scientific investigations, the layman is not sure whether he is asking the right questions and getting the right answers and the person interested in the expression of scientific concepts is not sure whether he has reached the limits of language. This apparently contradictory situation arises out of the fact that scientists believe that they are investigation the structure of the universe whereas the universe does not have one single structure. Each person makes his own approximation of the universe and each successive approximation is as valid as the other.

The large bulk of human communication is verbal communication. Language is both an expression of culture as well as a vehicle of cultural transmission. It is both a cause and an index of social and cultural change. The inter-dependence of language with social and cultural structures has been acknowledged by all social scientists. By expanding or contracting the communication network, language plays a key role in defining the nature of culture itself. The constant restructuring of the society which takes place as a result of addition of new knowledge, if not properly comprehended, interpreted, and transmitted, may create and reinforce an elitist culture which is characterized by a limited class beneficiary of the resultant socio-economic and cultural development.

Bhujang R. Bobade (Born 1982) from last Nine years, Bobade is in the consulting world to take the helm in Archival and Museum field at a time of crisis and change. He went through a dramatic turnaround. He started bootstrapping growth. Now, he is on the doorstep of a major expansion. It's exciting and tiring and rewarding as ever building a rigorous strategic framework under his creative, community-based work. In his all last years, it was all about getting the programming moving, experimenting, and exploring the possibilities with spreading historical research in our community- History for Society Research. He is also working on different historical and educational Museums committees.

Dr. Omshiva Ligade (Born 1968) is an eminent Indian historian of medieval and Modem India, following the approach of Cultural historiography. He has a great experience of Under Graduate and Post Graduate teaching also. He is well known for his strong stance about Numismatic and research orientation work. He has authored a number of books, including Syllabus books chapters. He is head of History Dept., Shivjagruti Mahavidhyalaya, Nalegaon Dist. Latur from last 14 years. He was Chairman of State and National conferences, workshops about History and Gandhian thoughts. He is executive editor of different National and international research journals. He is said to be the first historian to use inscriptions and pictorial sources for the teaching of history which is what current days students of history do. He is said to be a pioneer in throwing light on judicial system in late medieval period.

In ancient times, India had the Gurukula system of education in which anyone who wished to study went to a teacher's (Guru) house and requested to be taught. If accepted as a student by the guru, he would then stay at the guru's place and help in all activities at home. This not only created a strong tie between the teacher and the student, but also taught the student everything about running a house. The guru taught everything the child wanted to learn, from Sanskrit to the Holy Scriptures and from Mathematics to Metaphysics. The student stayed as long as she wished or until the guru felt that he had taught everything he could teach. All learning was closely linked to nature and to life, and not confined to memorizing some information.

The modem school system was brought to India, including the English language, originally by Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay in the 1830s. The curriculum was confined to "modem" subjects such as science and mathematics, and subjects like metaphysics and philosophy were considered unnecessary. Teaching was confined to classrooms and the link with nature was broken, as also the close relationship between the teacher and the student.

Universal and compulsory education for all children in the age group of 6-14 was a cherished dream of the new government of the Republic of India. This is evident from the fact that it is incorporated as a directive policy in article 45 of the constitution. But this objective remains far away even more than half a century later. However, in the recent past, the government appears to have taken a serious note of this lapse and has made primary education a Fundamental Right of every Indian citizen. The pressures of economic growth and the acute scarcity of skilled and trained manpower must certainly have played a role to make the government take such a step. The expenditure by the Government of India on school education in recent years comes to around 3% of the GDP, which is recognized to be very low.

India is divided into 28 states and 7 so-called "Union Territories". The states have their own elected governments while the Union Territories are ruled directly by the Government of India, with the President of India appointing an administrator for each Union Territory. As per the constitution of India, school education was originally a state subject -that is, the states had complete authority on deciding policies and implementing them. The role of the Government of India (GoI) was limited to coordination and deciding on the standards of higher education. This was changed with a constitutional amendment in 1976 so that education now comes in the so-called concurrent list. That is, school education policies and programmes are suggested at the national level by the GoI though the state governments have a lot of freedom in implementing programmes. Policies are announced at the national level periodically. The Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), set up in 1935, continues to play a lead role in the evolution and monitoring of educational policies and programmes. This book has the entire Ancient to Modern journey of Indian Education which will become useful for researchers.