Lably
Skip to content

Education in India

  • 76 min read
  • 11 chapters
  • 1 lab on Lably

Learn it on Lably

Lab · Class 6–7Vedic Age

Schooling is divided into four main levels: primary education, secondary education, higher education, and vocational education, and can be completed in publicly funded or private schools. The approximate ratio of the total number of public schools to private schools in India is 10:3.

Issues including grade inflation, corruption, fraudulent institutions, and poor employment prospects frequently affect students in India. Half of all graduates in India are considered unemployable. It has also been argued that this system has been associated with an emphasis on rote learning and external perspectives.

English is used as a major medium of instruction in higher education, however is often poorly taught due to the lack of proficient English-speaking teachers, placing underprivileged students at a disadvantage in higher education and professional domains.

History

Early education

Early education in India was delivered through gurukuls, and placed importance on the guru (teacher), particularly on the relationship between the guru and their shishya (students). The first higher learning institute was located in Taxila, possibly dating as far back as the 8th century BCE.

The institute is often referred to as a university, however, the usage of the modern-day term is debatable as the teachers living there may not have had official membership of particular colleges, and there did not seem to have existed purpose-built lecture halls and residential quarters. Nalanda, located in medieval Magadha (modern-day Bihar), is regarded as the world's first residential university, and all subjects there were taught in the Pali language.

Buddhist monasteries offered secular education in medical studies. From 500 BCE to 400 BCE, Buddhist learning centres became common, and attracted foreign students to study topics such as Buddhist Páli literature, logic, and páli grammar. Notable institutions included Nalanda, Vikramashila, and Odantapuri. Chanakya, a Brahmin teacher, was among the most famous teachers, associated with the founding of the Mauryan Empire.

Shramanas and Brahmanas historically offered education by means of donations, rather than charging fees or the procurement of funds from students or their guardians. Later, stupas and temples also became centres of education; religious education was compulsory, but secular subjects were also taught. Students were required to be brahmacharis or celibate. The knowledge in these orders was often related to the tasks a section of the society had to perform. Arts, crafts, Ayurveda, architecture, etc., were taught.

With the advent of Islam in India the traditional methods of education increasingly came under Islamic influence. Pre-Mughal rulers such as Qutb-ud-din Aybak and other Muslim rulers initiated institutions which imparted religious knowledge. Scholars such as Nizamuddin Auliya and Moinuddin Chishti became prominent educators and established Islamic monasteries. Students from Bukhara and Afghanistan visited India to study humanities and science. Islamic institution of education in India included traditional madrassas and maktabs which taught grammar, philosophy, mathematics, and law influenced by the Greek traditions inherited by Persia and the Middle East before Islam spread from these regions into India. A feature of traditional Islamic education was its emphasis on the connection between science and humanities.

British rule and the subsequent establishment of educational institutions saw the introduction of English as a medium of instruction. Some schools taught the curriculum through vernacular languages with English as a second language. The term "pre-modern" was used for three kinds of schools – the Arabic and Sanskrit schools which taught Muslim or Hindu sacred literature and the Persian schools which taught Persian literature. The vernacular schools across India taught reading and writing the vernacular language and arithmetic. British education became solidified into India as missionary schools were established during the 1820s.

18th century

Dharampal was instrumental in changing the understanding of pre-colonial education in India. Dharampal's primary works are based on documentation by the colonial government on Indian education, agriculture, technology, and arts during the period of colonial rule in India. His pioneering historical research, conducted intensively over a decade, provides evidence from extensive early British administrators’ reports of the widespread prevalence of indigenous educational institutions in Bombay, Bengal and Madras Presidencies as well as in the Punjab, teaching a sophisticated curriculum, with daily school attendance by about 30% of children aged 6–15.

In 1818, the fall of Maratha Empire lead to large parts of India coming under British rule. During the decade of 1820–30, detailed surveys of the indigenous education system that were prevalent in their provinces were conducted by the British.

G.L. Prendergast, a member of the Governor's Council in Bombay Presidency, recorded the following about indigenous schools on 27 June 1821:

"I need hardly mention what every member of the Board knows as well as I do, that there is hardly a village, great or small, throughout our territories, in which there is not at least one school, and in larger villages more; many in every town, and in large cities in every division; where young natives are taught reading, writing and arithmetic, upon a system so economical, from a handful or two of grain, to perhaps a rupee per month to the school master, according to the ability of the parents, and at the same time so simple and effectual, that there is hardly a cultivator or petty dealer who is not competent to keep his own accounts with a degree of accuracy, in my opinion, beyond what we meet with amongst the lower orders in our own country."

Colonial period and English education

In 1835, the English Education Act was passed by the colonial government, making English the formal medium of education in all schools and colleges. It neglected both indigenous schools and mass education, as only a small section of upper-class Indians were educated to become the connecting link between the government and the masses. This act is today popularly known as Macaulayism.

"We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population."

According to sociologist Hetukar Jha, this act lead to the decline of indigenous schools which flourished in villages and towns, and simultaneously, the Act skewed in favor of the filtration theory of education, which worked to block to a significant extent the entry of the middle classes and below.

Missionary schools

Christian missionary organisations played a notable role in the development of modern education in India from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Working alongside colonial institutions and indigenous reform movements, missions contributed to the expansion of literacy, vernacular scholarship, teacher training, English-medium education and the establishment of schools and colleges. Their efforts form an important strand in the broader history of education in India.

Post-independence

Since the country's independence in 1947, the Indian government sponsored a variety of programmes to address the low literacy rate in both rural and urban India. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, India's first Minister of Education, envisaged strong central government control over education throughout the country, with a uniform educational system.

The Union government established the University Education Commission (1948–1949), the Secondary Education Commission (1952–1953), University Grants Commission and the Kothari Commission (1964–66) to develop proposals to modernise India's education system. The Resolution on Scientific Policy was adopted by the government of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. The Nehru government sponsored the development of high-quality scientific education institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology. In 1961, the Union government formed the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) as an autonomous organisation that would advise both the Union and state governments on formulating and implementing education policies. In 2015, the Swach Vidyalaya had finished which was an initiative to put a functional toilet in every school.

2020

In 2019, the Indian Ministry of Education released a draft of a new education policy, which was followed by a number of public consultations. It discusses reducing curriculum content to enhance essential learning, critical thinking, and promoting more holistic, experiential, discussion-based and analysis-based learning. It also talks about a revision of the curriculum and pedagogical structure from a 10+2 system to a 5+3+3+4 system design in an effort to optimise learning for students based on cognitive development of children. On 29 July 2020, the cabinet approved a new National Education Policy with an aim to introduce several changes to the existing Indian education system. The Policy aims to make pre-primary education universal and places special emphasis on achieving foundational literacy/numeracy in primary school and beyond for all by 2025.

Sign in to keep reading

10 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in India

MuslimsAdherents of IslamPresidencies and provinces of British India1612–1947 British directly-ruled administrative divisions in IndiaStates and union territories of IndiaIndia is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, for a total of 36 sSikhsReligious groupInternational Alphabet of Sanskrit TransliterationTransliteration scheme for Indic scriptsPrime Minister of IndiaHead of government