Education System In India During British Rule

 Education System In India During British Rule

1. INTRODUCTION

 Educational administration of the modern type may be stated to have its genesis and development during the British period only. Before the entry of the foreign missionaries into India there was an indigenous system of education prevalent in the country, covering both elementary and higher education. It was purely a private enterprise, uncontrolled and unconstrained by any kind of external agency. The organisation of these institutions had least resemblance with the present type of educational administration. In the beginning, education and its administration was under British control for a long time. Later, the demand for Indianisation of the educational administration was intensified. Mostly the policy of the alien government was of non-interference and withdrawal from the active participation in educational expansion programmes. Hence, private enterprises both Indian and foreign had received encouragement by way of grants-in- aid. Consequently, the machinery of educational administration, that had its growth and development during the period, was vested with controlling and supervisory functions mainly.

2. OBJECTIVES

 After going through this content the learner will be able to: 

● Explain the historical perspective of educational administration in India

 ● Discuss the major features of educational administration during British era 

● Classify the periods of educational administration during British era 

● Explain different Charters and acts developed by Britishers

 ● Describe the contribution of British period in educational administration 

● Explain the structure of Educational Administration during British Period

3. THE EARLIER PERIODS OF THE BRITISH RULE 

As during the earlier periods of British rule they had the tradition to follow laissez faire policy or non-interference policy. All the schools were administered internally, there being no external control. The parents have to pay for the education of their children. The quality of education offered dependent directly on the amount that the parents themselves paid for the education. Received no attention from the East India Company as it neither assumed any direct responsibility for educating the Indians nor did it consider education as a part of its administrative structure. The main purpose of East India Company was to flourish their trade, education was never been their priority. For nearly two centuries of its existence, the East India Company showed very little interest in the spread of education in India. Prior to 1772 there were only three institutions maintained by the East India Company and these were concerned with imparting education to the Eurasians children of the company’s officers. Fort Williams College opened in Calcutta soon after 1772 was meant to give education in Indian languages. The Calcutta Madrassa and Sanskrit colleges first opened in Banaras and later also in Calcutta were designed to provide competent Indian assistants in judicial services. At the government level there was a little chance of developing any kind of educational administrative set up during the early period of British rule.

4. THE SECOND PERIOD (1813-1853) 

This period is termed as the period of Provincial-line-of-Action because different provinces (Bombay, Madras, Bengal, Punjab, and North Western Province) were left free to adopt their educational policies. The development of Educational Administration in India began in 1775 with the efforts of East India Company. It was the modest proposal of Wilberforce to send school masters to India but was rejected in the British Parliament in 1793. It was only the charter act of 1813 that East India Company recognised the responsibility for the education of the Indian people . Section 43 of the charter Act of 1813 declares that, “A sum not less than one lakh rupees in each year shall be set apart and applied to the cause of education.” 

With this declaration official atmosphere was made to recognise the educational activities in Bengal, Bombay and Madras from 1823 to 1837 and Bengal set up committee of public instruction in 1823 for implementing the Charter act of 1813. In a resolution dated 17 July 1823 the governor general council appointed a general committee of public Instruction for the Bengal presidency . Later this general committee of public instruction was replaced by another known as the Council of Education, which is the second administrative structure of education initiated in the country by the company. Lord William Bentinck’s Resolution of 1835 based on Macaulay’s minutes passed in favor of English as a medium of instruction. In this resolution he declared that the assistance towards spread of education would be confined to English schools only and that all the money to be granted would be spent in opening such institutions. In Bombay, the Bombay native education society was doing good work. In 1840, when it was wound up to be replaced by Board of Education it constructed four district English schools and primary school which were of the secondary school standards of present day. Bombay was the first province to introduce systematic administration of education. The history of education in Madras during the period 1823-53 makes a lawful reading. However, due to conduction of missionary activities on a very large scale in Madras; English education was imparted more extensively than even in Bombay where there was an English school in each district of province. In the north western province the education institutions were controlled by the Govt. of Bengal till 1843 when they were transferred to the North Western Province (NWP). During this period, there was a tendency towards centralisation of educational administration. Majority of educational institutes were under the control of the general department of Government of India.

5. THE THIRD PERIOD (1854-1919)

 This period is known as the period of extreme centralisation. The government of India was concerned with the administration and general policies. They exercised a great influence on the provincial legislation, finances and administration. Provincial governments remained as the agencies of central government which were expected to submit proposal for education legislation before introduction, for previous sanction of government of India. The province of Punjab was constituted in 1854 and government established a school on modern lines in Amritsar. Strictly speaking a modern system for administration of education was established after the Sir Charles Wood’s Despatch of 1854. It has been described as the Magna Carta of the English Education in India. The dispatch laid down the foundation stone of the system of administration of education in India. The type of administration for education, which he introduced, is similar to what we are having today. It recommended the establishment of separate departments of public instructions in each province. By 1854, the Britishers as they believed had a firm footing in India. The board of directors therefore accepted the responsibility of educating the people of India and thus came the Education Dispatch of the Board of Sections of the East India Company in 1854. In 1857, more and more high and middle schools were opened and attention was given to the primary education. Department of Education started functioning in all provinces and the grants-in-aid system was established. Department of public instructions were created in 1857 in each of the five provinces i.e. Bengal, Bombay, Madras the North western province and Punjab. The head of the department was called the Director of public instructions and he was the Chief executive. All the education schemes however small had to have the approval of the centre .The provincial governments could not even appoint a teacher without sanction from the centre. In 1858, the regime of the East India Company ended and the government of the country passed into the hands of the British crown. Now, an extreme form of centralisation was introduced. In 1870, Lord Mayo introduced a system of administration centralisation under which general powers of education were transferred to provincial government with two limitations broadly:

the education schemes however small had to have the approval of the centre .The provincial governments could not even appoint a teacher without sanction from the centre. In 1858, the regime of the East India Company ended and the government of the country passed into the hands of the British crown. Now, an extreme form of centralisation was introduced. In 1870, Lord Mayo introduced a system of administration centralisation under which general powers of education were transferred to provincial government with two limitations broadly:

(ii) Expenditure in education was to be met from the revenue assigned for the same purpose. Thus, while the responsibility for educational policy had been transferred to the provinces, the centre still held important supervisory powers. The exclusive responsibility of the central government for all education in the country changed with the decentralisation policy of the government in 1870. In 1899, Lord Curzon became the governor general to India and the minute interest of centre in education turned the deep and sustained interest in the Government of India. The Indian Education Commission followed the policy of Education Acts of 1870 and 1876 and recommended that the control of primary education should be transferred to district and municipal board. But this recommendation was not a good one because this shifting of responsibility to the newly formed boards, left them free to experiment with such a vital subject as the education of the people. This commission declared that elementary education of the masses should be considered the first charge in the foster care of the state and that all Government secondary schools should be gradually transferred to local native management. The recommendation of the commission affected the machinery of education and administration and the school Boards were now to supervise the administration of the schools within their jurisdiction. The report of Indian Education Commission of 1882-83 did not directly touch upon the reorganisation of structure of education. It did however recommended that in parliament class of high school there should be two streams, one leading to the entrance examination for unit and the other of a more practical character intended to train the young people for commercial vocational and non literary pursuits. By 1882, a new university was opened in Punjab. The total number of colleges were by then 68, of which 38 were run by the government, 18 by Christian mission, 5 by Indian management and remaining 7 were situated within the state under Indian provinces.

In the same year (1882) the government appointed a commission of 21 members under the chairmanship of Mr. Hunter to enquire the conditions of secondary education in India. The commission recommended that instead of opening more schools under government management, it should be the policy of the government to divert the money towards the encouragement of privately managed non-governmental institutions for being opened.

In 1901, Lord Curzon summoned a conference for the Direction of public instruction of the country to discuss the education, its defects and proposals of reform. The aim of this discussion was that education should be expanded through private efforts and expansion should be accompanied by control and quality. To strengthen the machinery for education in the government of India, Lord Curzon was appointed as Director General of Education in 1901 and his chief responsibility was to provide advice to government of India in educational matters and to coordinate the administration and academic affairs of the province.

Indian University Commission was set up in 1902 and under its recommendations a resolution was issued in February, 1904. The government of India declared that “it cannot consent to divest itself of the responsibility that attached both to its interest and prerogatives. If it is to lend the resource of the state to the support of certain schools, it cannot abrogate its weight to a powerful voice in the determination of the course which is there imparted.” In March 1904, another resolution accepted the policy advocated by the Indian Education Commission of 1882 for the progressive devolution of education upon private enterprises: “the government of India at the same time recognised the extreme importance of the principle that in each branch of education, government should maintain a limited number of institutions, both as models of private enterprises to follow and in order to uphold a high standard of education.” 

Under the Indian Act 1904, the schools had to be recognised by the universities. This situation continued till the establishment of separate Boards of secondary education and introduction of secondary school leaving examination in the state. A separate department of education was created in the central government in 1910. It was now under the control of a new education member of the executive council of governor general with two secretaries and one assistant secretary- The post of Director General was abolished at this stage which was revived in 1915 with a changed designation of Education Commissioner. In 1910, Lord Minto and Lord Morley took steps to improve the organisation of government of India. And as a result education which was earlier the responsibility of home department in the government was transferred to new Department of Education.

In 1917-1919, the Calcutta University Commission under the chairmanship of Sir Michael Sadler observed that the dividing line between the university and secondary courses should more properly be drawn at the intermediate examination stage than the matriculation, and the admission test for universities should be passing of the intermediate examination. The act of parliament of 1919 marked the beginning of parliamentary government in India. The provincial governments came to be administered through what is known as a Diarchy. Under this system, the sphere of activities of a provincial government became divided into two parts, the reserved departments and the transferred departments. Under this system education with some minor exceptions became a provincial and transferred subject in charge of the Indian ministers for the first time. The government of India Act 1919 introduced a new concept of central responsibility, advisory and coordination. 

6. THE LAST STAGE IN THE BRITISH ERA (1920-1947) 

This stage is called the period of provincial autonomy as there had been comparatively greater devolution of power to the provincial authorities. So in 1921, because of the dual administration set up in the country, State Legislative Assemblies and the Ministry of Education came into existence. In the same year the Central Advisory Board of Education was set up as an instrument for the discharge of the centre’s advisory functions. 

The establishment of the inter-university board in 1924 brought about co-ordination in the broad outlines of working and courses of studies in the various universities in the country and secured better standards of education to acquire recognition abroad. This step may be called a landmark in aiming at international standards. Many of the older universities underwent important changes in the matter of administration in general and in providing facilities for higher education and research in particular. In 1929, the Hartog Committee was appointed as a back up to the Indian Statutory Commission, to review the position of education in the country. In the opinion of this Committee, the Matriculation Examination of the university still dominated the whole of the secondary course. In order to remove this defect, the Committee recommended that a large number of pupils intending to follow certain avocations should stop at the middle school stage. There should be more ‘diversified curricula’ in the schools.

 The Committee also recommended diversion of more boys to industrial and commercial careers at the end of the middle stage, preparatory to special instruction in technical and industrial schools. The recommendations of this Committee also met, more or less, the same fate as those of the Calcutta University Commission. So, these recommendations could not be implemented. The recommendation was discussed again by the Sapru Committee in 1934'. It recommended (for U.P.) that the Intermediate stage should be abolished and the secondary stage extended by one year; the secondary stage should consist of six years to be divided into two, the higher and the lower, each covering a period of three years; the whole course covering 11 years, five for primary and six for secondary; the general course should be of eight years up to the lower secondary stage. 

The degree- course at the university should extend over a period of three years. This Committee further recommended that vocational education and training should begin after the lower secondary stage. The recommendations of this Committee too did not seem to have had much impact, except to provide the basis for the diversification of courses later by the Secondary Education Commission. The Government of India Act (1935) introduced full provincial autonomy in 1937 and this gave greater powers to the Indian Education Ministers than they had under dyarchy. It was for the first time, therefore, that the educational problems began to be studied from the ‘national point of view’. 

A lot of exploratory and experimental work was done with regard to the primary education, secondary education, adult education, vocational and physical education and teachers’ training, etc., but not much work could be done with regard to higher education. The transfer of control of education from the Central Government to the Provincial Governments not only deprived them of the Central Government’s guidance and help but it isolated them from one another. The transfer of control was very helpful to promote education according to the local needs, but this promoted provincialism. There was now, neither any co-coordinating agency between the provinces and the central government nor among the provinces themselves. Feeling the need of this co-ordination and general common policy for the development of a national system of education, particularly in the area of higher education, Central Advisory Board of Education was revived in 1935 In 1936-37, two expert advisers, Abbot and Wood, were invited to advise the Government on certain problems of educational reorganisation, particularly on problems of vocational education. One important result of their recommendations has been that a new type of technical institution, called the ‘Polytechnic’ has come into existence. In some provinces, technical, commercial and agricultural high schools conducting non-literary courses were also started. The Zakir Hussain Committee of 1937 was appointed to formulate a scheme of Basic Education. It suggested that the duration of the course of Basic Education should be of seven years and education made free for boys and girls from the age of 7 to 14. In conjunction with the WoodAbbot report, the Central Advisory Board of Education discussed the Zakir Husain Committee’s report. On two occasions, the Board appointed Committees under the Chairmanship of B.C. Kher, to consider the reports. In 1939, the Second Committee gave very careful consideration to the relationship of high schools to Basic Education, and recommended that pupils at the age of eleven plus should, on completion of the fifth class in the junior basic primary schools should be diverted either to senior basic (middle) or to high schools, according to their abilities and aptitudes. Popular governments in the year 1939 were keen, on giving trial to the basic scheme of education. Basic schools were started in the then Bombay province. The outbreak of World War II, however, prevented the development of this experiment of great national value on governmental initiative. While accepting it in principle as the national scheme of education, governmental measures to implement the scheme remained half-hearted throughout, except at a few places, where voluntary bodies took up the cause. The John Sargent Report of 1944 called as “Post War Educational Development" recommended that the intermediate course should be abolished; ultimately the whole of this course should be covered in the high school, but as an intermediate step, the first year of the course should be transferred to the high school and the second to the universities. The minimum duration of the university degree course should be three years. Unfortunately, the Plan was not given a trial, with the result that the regeneration of the educational system of India has been considerably delayed. The Department of Education which was working as a separate department at the centre was conjugated with the Department of Health and Agriculture to be called the Department of Education, Health and Agriculture. The department was again trifurcated into three separate departments, i.e., Department of Education, Department of Health, and Department of Agriculture, in 1945. In 1947, the Department of Education was raised to the status of a full fledged Ministry of Education under the charge of the Cabinet Minister, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. The ministry was designated differently at different stages according to the volume of work entrusted to it and now it is called the Ministry of Human Resources Development.

7. CONCLUSION 

Throughout these years there had been vast expansion of education except for short lull during the war period. New experiments like basic education were begun. Many committees were appointed which gave reports for the improvement of education resulting into considerable expansion of educational and administrative machinery.