Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

EDUCATION

and admission of students passed into the hands of local leaders who were Presidents or Secretaries of Managements of Private Colleges. Proliferation of private colleges started. While private colleges prospered, Government colleges, which were filled with mostly poor students and first generation learners, were plagued by transfers and non-filling of posts of staff as well as the financial crunch for infrastructure. Due to vast number of colleges to be controlled and supervised, the State Directorates of Collegiate Education who have the overall administrative control over both Government and Private Colleges have not been able to see that standards are maintained. Nor have the universities which deal with courses' and examinations been able to control and guide teaching standards. This dual control has led to deterioration in standards. sacred thread ceremony. The period of formal education ended with the Samavartana or graduation ceremony. After this the student was called a Sanataka. The Sushruta Samhita provides details about medical education which came into vogue during the post-Vedic period. Kautilya's Arthashastra (400-300 B.C.) pro- vides details about the education of a prince. He had to study religion, philosophy, agriculture, trade and statecraft. At the age of 16 he had to get married. Yet there was no institution or centre of learning comparable to the modern university or college in terms of infrastructure, fees, building, administration etc. BUDDHIST INFLUENCE For the first time in India and perhaps the world a type of institution under Buddhist influence comparable to the organised university of modern times came into being. Buddhist monasteries, instead of the home of the individual teacher, became organised institutions of higher learning. Taxila (or Taksasila) in North- Western India, now in Rawalpindi in Pakistan, was the most famous Buddhist seat of higher learning. Students from distant places like Banaras, Mithila and Kosala came to Taxila. Among the scholars connected with Taxila were Kautilya (Chanakya), master of the science of statecraft and author of Arthashastra who was the Minister of Chandragupta Maurya, Charaka, the great physician and Panini, the grammarian of the 4th century B.C. Jivaka, the great surgeon, studied at Taxila for seven years. The Buddhist monastery of Nalanda, near modern Patna in Bihar, which was founded in the Gupta peirod (4th century A.D) was another important centre of learning in Northern India. Nalanda attracted students from China and South-East Asia. It was supported by the income from a number of villages which the monastery had acquired. Residential facilities were provided to most of the students. Other centres of learning were Vallabhi in Gujarat and Vikramshila in the present-day Bhagalpur district of Bihar. The principal subjects taught at Taxila were the Vedas, grammar, philosophy and a wide range of crafts which included medicine, surgery, archery and allied military arts, astronomy, ac- countancy, agriculture, magic, the art of finding treasure, music, dancing and painting. Nalanda did not confine itself to Buddhist theology but also taught the Vedas, Hindu philosophy, logic, grammar and medicine.

Before 1947, Government colleges, especially in Princely States, were predominant in number. It was difficult to establish and run a private college because financial assistance or grant from the Government was not adequate. After Independence, the situation changed vastly. Demand for higher education increased rapidly even in rural areas because of the link between education and the glamour of Government jobs. Secondly, for political and social leaders, it became a matter of local prestige to have a college in their own constituency. A fillip to their aspiration came when Government grants increased to more than 80% of expenditure. This was further boosted in States like Karnataka and Maharashtra where the scheme of 100% salary grants (equal to salaries of staff in Government colleges) was introduced in about 1970. As a result of this, power of making appointments of staff ORIGIN Education in India in the early Vedic period began when the seers ( rishis ) started imparting to their sons, daughters and others who joined them the knowledge they had of the Rig Veda and, later, the other three Vedas and Vedangas and Upanishads. The instruction was imparted in the homes or ashrams of the guru (teacher). No fees were levied. The students were expected to beg for food and what was received was shared by everyone in the gurukula. The method of teaching was oral and discussion and debate were the chief modes of learning and clearing doubts. The students repeated the verses of the Veda after the teacher until they mastered them. The purpose of Rig Vedic education was to pre- serve contemporaneous religious texts through oral transmission by the teacher to his pupil who after memorising them, reflected on them and participated in discussions and learned assemblies. In the early Vedic age this education was open to women. Women sages were called Bhramavadinis. The names of 72 women rishis are mentioned in the Rig Veda. In the later Vedic period, ritualistic and sacrificial religion began to be emphasised with the composition of the Yajurveda., which contained sacrificial formulae in prose and verse. Conse- quently, the external, material and mechanical aspects of worship and sacrifice became the principal subjects of study. The caste system took shape and crystallised during the later Vedic period. Consequently, education was monopolised by the upper castes, especially the Brahmanas. Women were no longer as prominent as they were in the educational sphere in the Rig Vedic age. The names of only a few women rishis like Gargi and Maitreyi are mentioned in the later Vedic period. At the same*time, areas of learning got widened to include Ayurveda, warcraft especially for princes, astronomy, arithmetic, statecraft (politics) etc. Ashrams continued to be centres of learning. Gurudakshina at the end of the course (generally 12 years of brahmacharya life) came into vogue. The post-Vedic period (600B.C. to 300 B.C.) is marked by detailed rituals for the various stages of student life. A ceremony called Vidyarambha was performed when the student began learn- ing the alphabets. This was followed by Chudakarna or tonsure. The formal beginning of education was after the Upanayanam or

EDUCATION FROMVEDIC TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY