Spread of Modern Education – Education System In India During British Rule
The British were more successful in helping to revolutionise the intellectual life of India through the introduction of modern education. The spread of modern education was not solely the work of the Government: the Christian missionaries and a large number of enlightened Indians also played an important part.
For the first 60 years of its dominion in India, the East India Company took little interest in the education of its subjects. There were, however, two very minor exceptions to this policy. In 1781, Warren Hastings set up the Calcutta Madrasa for the study and teaching of Muslim law; and, in 1791, Jonathan Duncan, the Resident of Varanasi started a Sanskrit college there, for the study of Hindu Law and Philosophy. Both these institutions were designed to provide a regular supply of qualified Indians to help the administration of law in the courts of the Company.
Missionaries and other humanitarians began to exert pressure on the Company to encourage and promote modern, secular westernised education in India. A humble beginning was made in 1813 when the Charter Act directed the Company to spend a sum of one lakh rupees for the spread of western education in India.
For years a great controversy raged in the country on the question of the direction that this expenditure should take. While one section of opinion wanted it to be spent exclusively for the promotion of modern Western studies, others desired that along with Western sciences and literature, emphasis should be placed on the expansion of traditional Indian learning. Even among those who wanted to spread Western learning differences arose on the question of medium of instruction to be adopted in modern schools and colleges. Some recommended the use of Indian languages, while others advocated the use of English.
The two controversies were settled in 1835 when the Government of India decided to devote the limited resources to the teaching of Western sciences and literature through the medium of the English language alone. Lord Macaulay, who was the Law Member of the Governor-General’s Council, argued that the Indian languages were not sufficiently developed to serve the purpose, Earlier this idea had got support from enlightened individuals like Raja Ram Mohan Roy who saw western education as “the key to the treasures of scientific and democratic thought of the modern west.”
They also realised that traditional education had bred superstition, fear, and authoritarianism. In fact, no prominent Indian of the 19th and 20th centuries deviated from this approach. Hereafter, it was due to the pressure exerted by Indians themselves which played an important part in the Government expanding its educational activities on modern lines.. The Government of India acted quickly on the decision of 1835 and made English the medium of instruction in its schools and colleges. It only opened a few English schools and colleges as the government was not willing to spend more than an insignificant sum on education. To make up for the paucity of expenditure on education, the officials had recourse to the so-called “downward filtration theory”. Since the allocated funds could educate only a handful of Indians, it was decided to spend them in educating a few persons from the upper and middle classes who were expected to assume the task of educating the masses and spreading modern ideas among them. This policy continued until the very end of British rule. It may also be pointed out here that even though education did not percolate downwards, modern ideas did to a large extent, though not in the form desired by the rulers. Through political parties, the press, pamphlets, and public platforms, the Indians or the intellectuals, spread ideas of democracy, nationalism, anti-imperialism and social and economic equality and justice among the rural and urban masses.
State’s Educational Dispatch of 1854 called the Wood’s Dispatch was an in the development of education in India. The Dispatch asked the Government to be responsible for the education of the masses. As a result of the directions given to Departments of Education were instituted in all provinces and affiliating
Universities were set up in 1857 at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the famous Bengali novelist, became in 1858 one of the first two graduates of Calcutta University.
The Government’s immediate concern was to economise the cost of administration by getting a cheap supply of educated Indians to man the large and increasing number of subordinate posts in the administration and British business concerns as it was too costly and perhaps not possible to import enough Englishmen for the purpose. This emphasis on a cheap supply of clerks explains why the schools and colleges had to impart modern education in English which was the language of the administration. Another motive behind the educational policy of the British sprang from the belief that educated Indians would help expand the market for British manufactures in India. Lastly, Western education was expected to reconcile the people of India to British rule particularly as it glorified the British conquest of India. The British thus wanted to use modern education to strengthen the foundation of their political authority in the country.
A major weakness of the educational system was the neglect of mass education with the result that mass literacy in India was very low. As many as 94 per cent of Indians were illiterate in 1911 and 92 per cent in 1921. The emphasis on English as the medium of instruction in place of the Indian languages also prevented the spread of education to the masses. It further tended to create a wide gulf between educated persons and the masses. Moreover, the costly nature of higher education tended to make it a monopoly of the richer and middle classes. Another major lacuna in the early educational policy was the almost total neglect of the education of girls.
This was partly due to the Government’s anxiety not to provoke orthodox Indians and mainly because female education lacked immediate usefulness for the British since women could not be employed in the Government. The Company’s administration also neglected scientific and technical education. By 1857 there were only three medical colleges in the country at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras and only one good Engineering College at Roorkee to impart higher technical education and even this was open only to Europeans.
At the root of many of these weaknesses lay the problem of finance as the Government was never willing to spend much on education. But we must, however, remember that in spite of all the many weaknesses of the official educational policy, the limited spread of modern education led to the propagation of modern ideas in India and thus helped in its modernisation.