 INAUGURAL SESSION

"It is my very great pleasure and privilege to welcome all of you assembled here at this inaugural meeting of the thirty-third session of the Central Advisory Board of Education.

`An inordinately long period of 22 months has elapsed since the thirty-second session of the Board was held in Chandigarh at the invitation of the State Government of Punjab. The delay in holding this annual session of the Board is due to a number of factors. This session was originally scheduled for December, 1966. But unfortu- nately, it could not be held owing to the sudden illness of the former Minister of Education, Shri Fakhru-ud-Din Ali Ahmed. On a suggestion from several State Education Ministers, it was decided to convene this session after the General Elections. It was also necessary to wait for the election of the representatives of the newly elected Lok Sabha which took place only in the session just concluded. This meeting has been convened as soon as the composition of the new Board was completed.

`The new Board which meets today reflects rather drastic changes of personnel without any precedent in the past. Out of the 23 Education Ministers representing various States and Territories, 21 are new members; and only two members from this category, Shri Sadiq from Jammu & Kashmir and Shri Chowdhury from Maharashtra, attended the last session as Ministers of Education. There have been other changes also; and as many as 42 out of the 61 members of the Board are new.

`This remarkable changes in membership is matched by the uniqueness of the tasks before the present session and the changed nature of the Board's responsibilities. Never before in the thirty- two years of its existence was the Board called upon to formulate a national policy for Education. Since the Indian Education Commission appointed by the Government of India in July 1964 submitted, its Report in June 1966, there has been a wide discussion on the recommendations of the Commission.

These recommendations have been considered by State Governments by the Conference of Education Ministers and by the Committee of Members of Parliament. The culmination of this nation-wide discussion and the long process of examination by various competent bodies will be the deliberations of this highest educational forum in the country. The deliberations of this August body will mark the transition from thought to action, from discussion to implementation.

`The Central Advisory Board has now acquired an important role in educational planning and co-ordination. At the completion of 20 years of Indian Independence today we are more than ever conscious of the role of education in promoting national development and social integration. The national policies in the field of education must be based on a national consensus, of which the main organ is the Central Advisory Board. With the formulation of a national policy for education and the firm resolve to implement it as a national programme, the Board enters a new phase of authority and functioning.

`The work for the present session has been well prepared by the three Standing Committees which met under the Chairmanship of the distinguished Ministers from Bihar, Madras and Maharashtra.

`Once again I welcome the distinguished members of the Board to this historic session which is expected to chart a new course for the development of education in this great and ancient country, now determined to advance on new paths towards the achievement of the noble objectives enshrined in our Constitution.

`May I request you, Sir, to open the thirty-third session of the Central Advisory Board of Education and deliver your inaugural address ?"

INAUGURAL ADDRESS BY DR. TRIGUNA SEN, UNION MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

"I join my friend and colleague, Shri Kirpal, in extending a warm welcome to all of you to this thirty-third Session of the Central Advisory Board of Education. This is the first time we are meeting after I took over as Minister of Education at the Centre. What makes me particularly happy to welcome you to this Session is the fact that the

Board is meeting, for, the first time, in the changed political situation, in the country. In the past, the meetings of the Board were held against the background of a relatively simple, easy and homogenous political situation created by the same political party being in power, both at the Centre and in the States. Board, therefore, had no great difficulties in coming to `agreed' conclusions or in selling its advice to the Centre as well as to the States. All this is now changed. The composition of the present Board happily reflects the changed political situation in the country; and many of you represent political parties which had never been in power before. As our former President, Dr. Radhakrishnan said some time ago, it is only after the last general election that democracy has come of age in this country. I am inclined to extend this statement to, the Board also and to say that, for the first time, it has now come of age and has the real opportunity of grappling with major educational issues facing the country in terms which cut across political ideologies. This meeting is, therefore, a test for all of us; and I am sure the deliberations of the Board will prove that our first and foremost commitment is to the education of the children of this, country and to nothing else.

The Formulation of the National Policy on Education.

There is yet another reason which makes this session stand out from the earlier ones. You are meeting here to advise. Government on the formulation of the National Policy on Education. The first occasion when the Board discussed a comprehensive statement on educational Policy was in 1944 when it approved the Post War Plan of Educational Development which suggested a blue print of over all educational reconstruction spread over 40 years, A comprehensive discussion of this type has not been held in the Board ever since; and during the least 23 years, we have generally been looking at education in a piece meal manner, stage by stage or sector by sector. We have also broadly confined ourselves to short-term programmes-annual or five-yearly-and comparatively neglected the long-terra Policies which should underlie the short-term programmes.It was this realization which made my pre- decessor, Shri M. C. Chagla, appoint the Education Commission in 1964 to advise Government on the national pattern of education. I take this opportunity to express our deep gratitude for this. I would also like to convey

the gratitude and thanks of the Government to Dr. D. S. Kothari and his colleagues-myself excluded-for having given a valuable report to the country. It deals, as you know, with all stages and sectors of education and includes a blue-print of educational development spread over 20 years-from 1966 to 1985. Since we are meeting to discuss this Report, the Board's session of 1967 promises to be as exciting and as significant as that of 1944.

`In formulating a National Policy on Education, we shall find considerable assistance in the proceedings of the Conference of Education Ministers held on 28th to 30th April'67 and in the Report of the Committee of Members of Parliament on Education (1967) which includes a draft statement on the national policy on education for the consideration of the Government of India. This Committee brought together, for the first time in our recent history, leading members of all the different political parties in the country and made them sit round a table to evolve a national policy on education. You will agree with me that they have produced an admirable document which can help us in our deliberations. I take this opportunity to convey the gratitude and thanks of Government to the members of the Committee for this service which they have done to the cause of education.

`I would also like to clarify that Government desires to give the widest possible opportunity to all the interests concerned before final decisions are taken and a National Policy on Education is formulated. In this Session, you will produce a draft statement on Policy on Education for the consideration of the Government of India and the State Governments. We propose to send this Statement to the State Governments forthwith; and I am happy to inform you that, in my informal discussion with them yesterday, the Education Ministers of all States and Union Territories have agreed to send me their comments on it before the end of September next. We shall also place this Statement, along with the Report of the Education Commission, before the Vice-Chancellors' Conference which has been convened to meet at Delhi on 11-13 September. The Rajya Sabha has already discussed the problem and the Lok Sabha is expected to discuss it during its next session. In the next two or three months, we also expect the press, the public interested in Education, and the

teachers' organisations to discuss the problem from every point of view. As you are aware, the Government of India was to have announced the details of implementing the decision to adopt the regional languages as media of education on 15th August. We could not do so because the Lok Sabha was not able to discuss the problem. We have therefore decided now to issue a, comprehensive resolution on National Policy on Education, including language policy by the end of the current financial year.

Implementation of the National Policy on Education.-

The formulation of the policy on education is important, no doubt. But its vigorous and sustained implementation is of even greater significance. We must therefore take steps, right from now, to see that the policy which we will enunciate in this session is given effect to as early as possible and at the latest from the next financial year 1968-69. From this point. of view, I requested the State Education Ministers to identify a programme of immediate action on the basis of the main recommendations of the Education Commission. I made a similar request to the Committee of Members of Parliament on Education also. I was very happy to find that there is a close agreement between the recommendations of the State Education Ministers and of the MPs' Committee on this subject. I was also happy to find that all the three Standing Committees of the Board have endorsed their proposals. I can therefore confidently say that we have been able to evolve a universally agreed programme of immediate action which can help us to make a break through in educational development.

`I discussed this programme informally with the State Education Ministers yesterday and I am happy to inform you that they all agreed to revise their Fourth Five Year Plans in education on the basis of this programme and, also to prepare their annual plans for 1968-69, on the same basis. They have also promised to send me these proposals, with all the necessary financial implications and other details by the end of October next We shall then have a broad picture of how we would like the Fourth Plan to be revised to implement the policy on education which we are now formulating and what steps must be taken to make an effective beginning in the year 1968-69 itself.

I have been much disturbed at the trend shown by educational planning in the country during the last two years. We started the Fourth Five Year Plan with a demand for about Rs. 1800 crores. It was then successively reduced to Rs. 1300 crores, Rs. 1260 crores and finally to Rs. 1210 crores. But when the actual plans of the State Governments and the Centre came to be finalised, we found that the total allocation to education went down still further to Rs. 1057 crores. However, if the expenditure of the first two years of the Fourth Plan is any guide, we may not be able to get even about Rs. 800 crores for education in the entire Fourth Plan. It is, therefore, very urgent to take stock of the whole position and to approach the Governments and the country with our detailed proposals regarding our minimum needs of educational development. With the cooperation of the State Governments, we hope to be able to do so by November next. We trust that the Governments concerned and the country will give a proper response and help us to take a major step for the development of education on the broad lines which we will be finalising at this session.

An Appeal

`When I see what is happening in education all around me at present, my heart is filled With deep sorrow. I feel very unhappy at the way in which the educational process in the classroom has almost broken down in some areas and is rapidly deteriorating in others. The incidents of student unrest, the continual closure of educational institutions in many parts of the country, the large scale practice of unfair means in examinations, the steady fall in teaching standards all these disquiet me not a little. But I am an incorrigible optimist. I regard all these unfortunate signs, which are not confined to education alone, as darkness before dawn and feel confident that we shall soon torn the corner. This does not, however, mean that the improvement of education is something automatic and that it will come of its own accord, as daylight follows night. No! It will need a firm determination on the part of the nation, to educate itself, a large increase in the financial and material investment in education and a sustained programme of dedicated work by students, teachers and educational administrators.

`I also feel unhappy because our language problems have become a hump which we find it very difficult to overcome. It is both urgent and necessary to overcome this obsession with language problems. Language, after all, is a tool of education and not an end in itself. I do recognise the need to take clear decisions regarding our language policy which, as all our important academic bodies have recommended, should be based on three unexceptionable principles : the adoption of the Indian languages as media of educataion at the university stage; the development of Hindi, the link language; and promotion of the study of English our international link and our largest window on the world. Once these decisions are taken, they must also be implemented firmly.But we must not equate the language policy with the National Policy on Education.

`Let me make it clear that the decision to make the regional languages the medium of instruction is not my personal decision, although I fully support it. This is a decision which has been widely supported by our most outstanding educationists and political leaders. I need not give you the long list of educational commissions and committees and individual leaders including Gandhiji, Tagore and Rajaji who have supported this. My only concern has been to implement the policy. If we believe that the decision to change over to the regional languages is a sound decision, we owe it to the country and to our. selves to implement it expeditiously and with determination. In this country, I find that the best way to become popular is to talk of noble policies and not to implement them. I am afraid that this is not my philosophy of life.

'I hear sometimes that the switch over will affect our standards. I ask myself what are our standards! On the contrary, our standards will never attain to anything like what they ought to be, unless we make the switch over.

'I also read these days that the implementation of the policy will endanger the unity of the country. Let me make it clear that if that is the price we have to pay, indeed if there is the slightest danger to the unity of the country that this decision poses I shall be the first person to oppose the change. Language or no language, the unity of the country is our most precious treasure and must be maintained at any cost.

`The decision to switch over to the regional languages is based on sound compelling educational considerations. We attained political freedom 20 years ago. We are seriously engaged in the task of winning economic freedom. But to my mind even more important is the mental and spiritual emancipation of the nation. How can we achieve that if our educational system denies to the child his inherent right of instruction in the mother tongue ?

`I must also confess to a feeling of importance. I am most unhappy at the slow pace at which things seem to be moving at present and would like immediately to initiate a large-scale programme of educational development. I do realise that some persons are irritated by this impatience and the other day an esteemed friend asked me in in Rajya Sabha whether I had the Alladin's lamp to do the things which I wanted done. I am sorry that I do not have the Alladin's Lamp of the Arabian Nights and even if I had it, it would hardly serve any useful purpose. But I know of one Alladin's Lamp which can help us to improve education quickly and effectively. It is the Gandhian advice of dedication to the service of the motherland, austerity, sharing of life with the common people and intensive hard work. This is a lamp which each one of us can light in his own heart and life, and if the millions and thousands of students, teachers and other educational workers in the country do so, the future of education in this country, and ultimately the future of the country itself, is safe."

VOTE OF THANKS BY SHRI G. K. CHANDIRAMANI, ADDITIONAL SECRETARY MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

"It is my pleasant duty to propose a Vote of Thanks to the members of the Central Advisory Board of Education and the invitees to this session and to all those who have worked hard for this historic meeting that has just been .inaugurated by the Education Minister.

`Sir, I shall not take much of your time because my role is simply one of thanking everybody. But I would like to say that this is a momentous session, meeting for the first time after the submission of the Report of the Education Commission. Thanks to the stimulus given by the Commission, there is a detailed discussion of educational problems everywhere; and there is enthusiasm and determination to bring about the necessary changes that

will make the educational system an effective instrument for social change. I have been attending the meetings of the Standing Committees and watching the discussions more than participating in them. The spirit that animated these discussions, the spirit of accommodation that has been shown by the various members in these discussions, makes me feel optimistic that in this historic session that is being held today and tomorrow we shall arrive at conclusions which will take the country forward.

`I do not like to mention the long list of persons who should be thanked for making these arrangements and also those who have spent days here. Some of the Ministers from the States and others have come on the 19th and will stay on until tomorrow. It is indeed good and gracious of them to find so much time for considering important matters of educational development.

`I shall conclude by. saying that I feel very optimistic about the deliberations of this session and hope that it will provide the. necessary guidance to take the country forward in educational development."