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toh erc redit.
Vision of Education in India
Edited by
Muchkund Dubey
Susmita Mitra
First published 2021
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© Council for Social Development, New Delhi
The right of Muchkund Dubey and Susmita Mitra to be identified as the authors of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
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trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
Co-published with Aakar Books, New Delhi. Print edition not for sale in South Asia
(India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Maldives or Bhutan)
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ISBN: 978-0-367-64390-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-12430-6 (ebk)
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Contents
Introduction 1
PART I : VISION OF EDUCATION
1. Tagore’s Vision of Education and Its Relevance Today 25
Susmita Mitra
2. Gandhiji’s Ideas on Education and Its Relevance Today 36
Sudarshan Iyengar
3. Learning the Art of Wholeness: Sri Aurobindo’s 55
Philosophy of Education
Ananta Kumar Giri
PART II : DECONSTRUCTING SEMINAL DOCUMENTS
ON EDUCATION
4. Delors Commission Report (1996) 89
Muchkund Dubey
5. Kothari Commission Report (1964-66) 108
Poornima M.
6. Historical Context of the Kothari Commission 126
Report (1964-66)
Sadhna Saxena
7. National Education Policies (1968 and 1986) and the 131
Ramamurti Committee Report (1992)
Vinay Kantha
8. Report of the Common School System Commission, 155
Bihar (2007)
Muchkund Dubey
vi Vision of Education in India
PART III : INEQUALITY IN EDUCATION
9. Inequality and Imbalances in the Education System 173
of India: Insights from NSSO 71st Round
Susmita Mitra
10. Perspectives on Education and Exclusion 215
Annie Namala
PART IV : ROLE OF PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT
11. School Education in India and the Role of Deliberative 221
Activism: The Pratichi Experience
Kumar Rana
12. Social Movement and Education 231
Medha Patkar
13. Comments on the Right to Education Campaign 237
Ambarish Rai
PART V : IMPACT ON EDUCATION OF GLOBALIZATION
AND NEOLIBERAL ECONOMIC POLICIES
14. The Story of Dismantling of Higher Education in 243
India: The Unfolding Crisis
G. Haragopal
15. The Commoditization of Education 258
Prabhat Patnaik
PART VI : RTE ACT AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION
16. The Policy Crisis in Education 265
Jandhyala B.G. Tilak
17. RTE Act from the Viewpoint of the Right to Education 273
and Law
Archana Mehendale
18. Pre-School Children and the Education System in India 281
Razia Ismail
19. A Teachers’ Movement Perspective 285
Ram Pal Singh
About the Contributors 293
Introduction
Muchkund Dubey and Susmita Mitra
Education is presently seen primarily as the means of earning a
livelihood and making students fit for the market where they can
be sold and purchased. This commoditization of education is a
relatively recent phenomenon brought about by the dominance
of neo-liberal thinking, reinforced by the latest phase of the
phenomenon of globalization commencing approximately from
the early 1980s.
Earlier, education was seen in a much broader prospective.
There was an emphasis in it on inculcating values. The term
‘learning’, which is currently regarded as the principal outcome
of education, was meant not only to acquire the three R’s, i.e.
Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, but also to comprehend and
develop critical thinking in order to be able to separate the
substance from the chaff. It was meant to help in cultivating
the faculty to cast an intelligent and critical eye on the world
around the learner. With the recent ascendancy of the concept of
fundamental rights and people’s movements to secure them, the
word “comprehend” has been extended to embrace “contest” and
to acquire the urge to seek the transformation of institutions and
society to make them just and equitable.
In the later phase of the 18th century and in the 19th century,
education was primarily used as a tool of nation-building in
societies consisting of diverse socio-economic classes and cultural
and religious communities. This happened particularly in the
United States and several of the European countries, particularly
2 Vision of Education in India
Germany. In these countries, children from diverse socio-
economic conditions and cultural and religious backgrounds
were brought under the single roof of a school to understand and
live with each other and to develop a common understanding
of basic values and objectives as the organizing principles of the
nation. The school thus became one of the most important places
for socialization. These objectives were pursued mainly through
a common school system funded, built and operated by the state.
The instrumental value of education is at the core of the
human capital theory advanced in the early 1960s by Theodor
Schultz and other economists. This theory gave rise to a series of
country and cross-country studies to calculate private and social
returns on investment in education. An overwhelming number of
these studies proved that education, particularly at the primary
level, contributed significantly to the enhancement of private
earning and growth of national GDP. The human capital theory
was expanded significantly by Amartya Sen’s emphasis on both
the instrumental and intrinsic values of education. Amartya
Sen’s intention was not to replace the human capital theory but
to incorporate it in the wider framework of the “capability”
approach.
The notion of education as a basic human right, which has
acquired traction recently is implicit in the concept of the intrinsic
value of education. Yet another form of the intrinsic value of
education, which has become salient recently with the spread
of democracy, is education for inculcating democratic norms or
education for citizenship.
The Right to Education approach underlines the importance
of universalization of education which is necessary to ensure
that every child, particularly children belonging to the poor
and marginalized sections of the population, is given an equal
opportunity for education for a minimum number of years. The
opinion is veering around to the goal of the state universalizing
education for a minimum of 10 years, but preferably 12 years.
Even if we see education from its instrumental value
perspective, a country can derive maximum benefit from education
for development purposes only if all or the vast majority of its
children, and not only a few who come from well-to-do families,
have the opportunity of contributing to the human capital of the
Introduction 3
country. This underlines the importance of making education
inclusive for the purpose of optimizing human capital formation
and for reaping the demographic dividend for which a window of
opportunity is open for India during the next 15-20 years.
The four pillars of learning, i.e. ‘learn to know’, ‘learn to do’,
‘learn to be’ and ‘learn to live together and with others’ highlighted
in the Report of the International Commission on Education for
the 21st Century, also known as the Delors Commission Report,
ideally combines both the instrumental and intrinsic values of
education in the context of the challenges of the 21st century. The
Report in this context very rightly emphasizes the importance of
‘learning throughout life’ and suggests changes of a structural
nature in the present educational systems, in order to realize this
objective.
The book revisits the vision of education of some of the great
Indian philosophers, thinkers and leaders of the Indian cultural
renaissance and of the movement for political freedom. These
include, in particular, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi
and Sri Aurobindo. The volume then deconstructs seminal
documents on education in India, particularly the Kothari
Commission Report (1964-66), National Education Policies of 1968
and 1986 and the revision of the 1986 policy in 1992, the Report
of the Commission on the Common School System, Bihar, (2007),
and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act
(2009). The book also seeks to review education through a matrix
of nation-building, democratization process, identity, power,
social and economic divisions, and social hierarchies—all in the
overall framework of globalization and neo-liberalism. There
are also chapters devoted to the analysis of the very significant
role played by the people’s movement in shaping education. The
volume also deals with trends and progress in the implementation
of educational programmes and policies and suggests the way
forward for achieving the goal of universalizing school education.
Indian Education in Ancient Time
Right from the ancient times, India had a rich tradition of
education. It was mostly moulded by the religious values of truth,
non-violence, peace, cooperation and self-fulfilment. Some of the
distinguishing features of education in the ancient times were:
