Question

briefly describe the system of indigenous education in India before the British interfered​

Answer 1

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         INDIGENOUS EDUCATION IN INDIA BEFORE BRITISH

When Britishers came to India, at that time indigenous system of education was prevalent. There was a large number of Muslim Maktabs and Madrasahs, Hindu Pathsalas, the Tolls of Bengal, Agraharas of southern India. These institutions were mostly single teacher schools with multiple class teaching. In some cases senior students acted as monitors and helped the teacher in the teaching work. The medium of instruction in these institutions was Sanskrit, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Telugu, Tamil etc.

Provision for imparting higher education existed in Madrasahs and other centers of higher learning. The importance of these institutions in fulfilling the educational needs of the Indian masses cannot be underestimated. Due to the unsatisfactory financial condition, these institutions were declining gradually. There is no mention of a single school which was held in a house exclusively used for itself Most of them were held in temples, private dwellings or sheds or the houses of the teachers themselves.

They had hardly any continuity and sprang up or vanished according to local demand or its absence. As a rule, they were not communal in their working and were opened to all who could afford to pay for schooling. Most of the teachers were Brahmins and accepted teaching profession not for the profit in cash or kind but more by the respectability which tradition gave it. The total emolument of the teacher was between Rs. 3 to Rs. 5 per month. The teachers were men of ordinary attainments and very often they knew no more than the little they taught in their schools.

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The pupils of the indigenous schools came from different communities although the children of the upper classes formed the large majority. These schools taught the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic. A large variety of multiplication tables were taught to the pupils mainly with a view to enabling them to solve mentally all types of sums that ordinarily occurred in daily life. The equipment of the schools was very simple and crude. These institutions were the main agency for the spread of mass education. It had no religious tinge and had no endowments either from the state or from the public.

The size of the school was generally small. There was no regular period of admission. At any time during the year the pupil could join the school and followed his own pace of study. In this respect the bigger schools were bit systematic. The chief merit of the indigenous system of education was its adaptability to local environment and the vitality and popularity they had earned by centuries of existence under a variety of economic conditions. The lack of training and sound education of teachers in general, the narrow and limited curriculum and the severe forms of punishment adopted, were some of the short comings of the indigenous system of education.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the indigenous system of education was fast decaying on account of the prevailing anarchy or the growing impoverishment of the people under the British rule. The British Government crushed down the indigenous educational system, which had been prevalent in our country from time immemorial.

These institutions were imparting some sort of education to the masses, if not better type of education. The authority did not take any step to improve the condition of those indigenous schools existed in different parts of the country in various pattern, but watched them steadily decline impoverished.

Gradually the network of indigenous schools disappeared and a few new schools cropped up. Not realizing the inherent utility of this indigenous system for the expansion of mass education the Western educators opined, “The indigenous system in India was of no importance and the British officers were justified in ending the same”.