Book Description

Introduction On August 15, 1947 India attained Independence from the British domination. This gave the people of the country the first fullest opportunity’ to mould their educational policy according to the needs of the nation in the fast changing times. But this opportunity was, not free from heavy responsibilities that lay ahead for reorienting the entire system of education, which apart from enabling the coming generations to develop their natural faculties, may also enable them to rebuild a new India. The content of learning, which from the very beginning of the British era had been mainly of a general and theoretical nature, had to be given a practical bias. The country needed a large number of technicians,. engineers, doctors, scientists and other skilled workers who could impart a new shape to various things in the developing economy of the country :which had been languishing under colonial exploitation for about two centuries.. These were, indeed very heavy and arduous tasks and the new Government and people of the country had no option but to accept the challenge of the situation and make their best efforts ‘to put the education in the country on right lines. The most important problems in the field of education before the national governments were the expansion of facilities for mass compulsory elementary education, reform of the secondary and university educational systems, to develop vocational and technical education at various levels-, to encourage women education and also to reorganise the structure of educational administration. With p. view to fulfil all these objectives, the Central and State Governments have been endeavouring to give a concrete shape to various programmes under the Five-Year Plans. We propose to discuss in detail all these efforts in the following chapters in this book. This chapter, however, presents only a brief analysis of the main events of educational importance during the period of Planning in India.