INAUGURAL SESSION
Welcome Address Shri S. Chakravarti, Education Secretary, welcomed the members on behalf of the Ministry of Education and Youth Services. He said:
On behalf of the Ministry of Education and Youth Services and myself, it is my proud privilege and pleasure to welcome you to this, the thirty-fifth meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education.
The problems of education are becoming more complex and difficult. The pressures of expansion are continually on the increase. and at every stage, and especially in -higher education, the enrolment is increasing very fast. And with the limited resources available, the, standards are tending to deteriorate. There is a crisis in values and the student youth is in revolt. Studenthood is inherently a tension-creating period; and its tensions can often lead to healthy growth. It is unfortunate that this desire for change has often taken violent and undesirable forms. The task of education has thus become more difficult even while its challenges have become more urgent and significant.
Yet another problem is the drastic reduction in the resources available to education, especially at a time when its problems have become more demanding than at any time in the past. As you are aware, the Fourth Five Year Plan has just been finalised and the allocation to education has been placed at only Rs. 829 crores, most of it falling on the State sector. The centrally-sponsored schemes have also been drastically reduced.
It is in this context that the agenda for this meeting has been prepared. The tone is set by a concrete view of the role of the Ministry, and importantly, the search for talent, the approach to programmes in the Fourth Plan and the Government Resolution on the National Policy on Education. The emphasis everywhere is on action. During the last year or so, the focus of work in We Ministry has been to give concrete shape to promises and programmes with a view to their effective implementation. Yet we have many promises to keep and I hope that this meeting under the distinguished chairmanship of an eminent educationist whose understanding of the problems of education at all levels is luminous and almost unrivalled, will lead us on the forward path of formulating and distilling sound guidelines for action and fulfilling more and more of these promises.
May I now request you, Sir, on behalf of the members of the Board and the Ministry of Education and Youth Services and myself, to deliver the inaugural address?
Inaugural Address Prof. V. K. R. V. Rao, Union Minister of Education and Youth Services then delivered the inaugural as well as the presidential address. He said:
I join my friend and colleague Shri Chakravarti in extending a warm welcome to you all to the thirty-fifth meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education. There is a large number of new members this year whom I am happy to welcome. I wanted to extend a very warm welcome to the Education Minister of our youngest State-Meghalaya who now becomes a member of the Central Advisory Board of Education. But some difficulty seems to have prevented him from attending. I would also like to take this opportunity to offer our very sincere appreciation of the cooperation and good work done by the members who have retired from the Board.
As you are aware, this Board generally meets once a year, some time in September to December in New Delhi. The last meeting of the Board was held in October 1968. So this meeting should have been held last winter and it was originally planned to hold it in December 1969. But I was advised that it would be better to wait till the Fourth Five Year Plan was finalised. The National Development Council gave its approval to the Plan towards the end of March 1970 and thereafter I took the earliest opportunity to convene this meeting.
I would like to draw your special attention to the exhibition of books in the corridors. I would like the members of the Board and the representatives of the press to.
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find some time to look at this collection of books which represents a part of the activity of the Ministry and its associated organisations in the matter of book production. I am sure you Will appreciate it.
Instead of making a general speech, I want to be practical and place certain suggestions before you to invite your comments. As you know, the Central Advisory Board is the supreme advisory body in the country on matters of education. Its role is advisory. But its advice, I have no doubt in my mind, will be given the greatest respect, both by the Central and State Governments. I think that we have been rather amiss in not taking a greater advantage of this Board. In a federal constitution like ours, a body of this character is, I think, extremely important and as far as I am concerned, I propose to give increasing importance to the Central Advisory Board of Education. I am also thinking of setting up a full-time secretariat for the Central Advisory Board so that we can get more concrete advantage of the working of this Organisation which is a Centre-State Organisation.
I would like to say something about the Fourth Five Year Plan although I have said it so often and am tired of saying it. You all know I have been very distressed at the priorities (or the absence of priorities, if I may say so) that have been given to education in the Fourth Five Year Plan. This Plan originally had an outlay of Rs. 1,210 crores for education out of a total outlay of about Rs. 16,000 crores or something like 7.4 or 7.5 per cent of the total outlay. This was the highest allocation given to education so far. Unfortunately as a result of subsequent revisions and redraftings, the outlay on education has now come down to Rs. 829 crores, taking the States and Centre together. This is the lowest allocation in terms of percentage of the total plan ever since planning began in this country. I had come to this Ministry with enthusiasm, experience and a real sense of passionate commitment, and it is rather unfortunate that I should have done so at a time when it has the lowest Plan allocation since 1950. For this, neither you nor I are to be blamed; and I mention it merely to illustrate the continuous constraint under which we have to work. Of course, we must try to do the best we can within the available resources. But we must also express our protest and strive to get larger allocations. I hope the State Education Ministers will talk to their Chief Ministers and the Union Minister to the Prime Minister and so on and the matter should also be taken up in the State Assemblies and in Parliament. We must make a consistent effort and build up propaganda to get more money for education. I might also mention that the efforts to be made in the States are more difficult than at the Centre, especially because the cut in allocations has fallen more heavily on the State sector than on the Central one. I do not know what to do about it. I do not want to go to the States to make propaganda in the State capitals be-cause there may be trouble. I do not want to enjoy the hospitality of the States in a rather unpleasant way. So we have to be a little careful. But I do want to say to the State Ministers that if they were to take the initiative, I am behind them. I also think it necessary to carry on a nationwide campaign on the importance of giving due priority to education. I am, therefore, trying to lobby the Central Advisory Board of Education and my colleagues in the States to join with me in this great campaign to awaken the national conscience.
I would like to draw your attention to the paper which has been circulated on the subject of Centre-State relations. I think it is important for us to realise that Education is not a concurrent subject and that the problem cannot be solved by saying that education should be made a concurrent subject. Anybody who says so should be in a position to get it implemented. Otherwise such a statement is only a form of escape. My distinguished predecessor in office, Mr. Chagla a very fine person and a man of great reputation and influence in the country, tried his best to place education in the concurrent list. But he failed. I think the only Government which showed some friendly interest in the idea was the Punjab Government. All the other States emphatically said `No'. It is therefore no good to pursue this idea which, I said, is nothing better than escapism. In my opinion it is far more important to realise that, after 1967, conditions have become more explicit than before 1967. Even before 1967, the States were very jealous of their autonomy and the reduction of centrally- sponsored schemes was done, not by DMK Ministers, or CPI Ministers or UF Ministers, but by Congress Ministers. Now the position has become even clearer and there is no chance of our being able to do anything which will diminish the power of the States. The trend, on the other hand. is in the direction of increasing the jurisdiction of the States and I do not think that it will be wise to pin our hopes on a programme which will confer more powers
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on the Centre. We must remember that this is a Federal country, that there is a written Constitution and that there is a distribution of functions between the Centre and the States. We have to take that as the starting point and within the constraints of this constitutional position, see what we can do and what role the Centre can play in education. My own feeling is that the Centre, which is comparatively free from local pressures, has a special responsibility for taking a long term and coordinated view and to strive to play a stimulating, innovative consultative and promotional role in educational development. This is an area where the States will not only not grudge but welcome the initiative by the Centre.
I would also like to have the advice of the Board, and if possible its support, to another idea. I feel that we should expand the Central sector in such a way that it can stimulate State enterprise or supplement it and also expand the Centrally-sponsored sector within the limitations of the Constitution. We can have a programme of increasing allocations for the Centre in terms of Central schemes and Centrally-sponsored schemes of educational development and if these schemes are formulated and operated in close cooperation with the State Governments, the Centre Will be really helped to play the kind of role that I have been talking about.
Similarly, I think it to be very important that the Centre should play the role what I would call an experience-exchange institution. This we have already been doing. I have been bombarding my colleagues In States about what is being done in Tamilnadu, Maharashtra or in some other States, so that the useful experiments which are being con- ducted in some States should be tried out in others as well. It is obvious that by this exchange of mutual experience, we would be able to go further than otherwise.
I also think that there should be much more discussion between the Central and State officials and that they should come together far more frequently than at present. The State Education Secretaries and Directors of Public Instruction should meet the officials at the Centre one another and discuss problems. These meetings should be of longer duration and discuss a few problems at a time but in great depth. I think that some method has to be devised to enable the experts and officials of the State Governments to work, in a coordinated fashion with the Central experts and officials so that an efficient framework will be created for the purpose of implementing the national education policy.
In this connection, I would like particularly to refer to the directive principle of State policy included in the Constitution regarding free and compulsory education upto the age of 14. The present situation is almost scandalous. The Constitution laid down that compulsory and free education up to the age of 14 should be provided by 1960. Ten more years have gone by and, as you are aware, we are yet far from the goal. Even the most progressive of the States will not be able to achieve this target for at least ten years and, in the number of States, we are not likely to reach it till the twenty- first century. This is a problem on which we are worried Members of Parliament as well as State Education Ministers. I would request the Central Advisory Board of Education to authorise me to set up a small group of Ministers to consider this problem. We can have experts to assist us in the matter. I must say that this is a question to which top priority has to be given. If earnest efforts are made even from now onwards, we may be able to implement this programme throughout the country and make primary education free and compulsory for all children by 1985. This will certainly be a great achievement.
One of the important things on which my friend Shri Chakravarti said something relates to student unrest or student indiscipline, violence and to the attacks that are being made in universities and colleges and in examination halls on individual teachers, college principals, vice-chancellors and so on. A stage has now come when we have to consider this problem urgently and do something about it. Otherwise, a stage might soon come when teachers may decide not to teach. I am speaking with a certain amount of passion on the subject because I belong to the class of teachers. I have been a teacher all my life and I still regard myself as a teacher. I therefore feel extremely distressed over these developments.
I think we have got to tackle this problem by the foreleg. We have got to put our heads together and see what we can do. I would also like to refer to the most recent thing that has happened; the destruction of Gandhian , pictures, Gandhian statues, Gandhian literature and Gandhian books. We have never heard about it in our country and we have never had in this country a tradition of burning books. Moreover this
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disrespect to Mahatma Gandhi is most distasteful. Who can deny the fact that this nation exists because of Gandhi and that he was the architect of the nation? One may not like his philosophy and his nonviolence is not accepted by all. But who was the person who aroused this country, who restored the self-respect of this country and who encouraged the various language-groups all over the country and made the entire Indian people, right from the tip of the Cape Camorin to the northern-most tip of India, come together? Who gave battle to the British and brought freedom to India? We may disagree with his political philosophy--I do not mind that at all. But should such things happen to the Father of the Nation and that too, within a few weeks of the countrywide celebration of the Gandhian Centenary? I feel extremely unhappy that such things should be happening at all. I do not know what to do about it. But I feel distressed and upset and it seems to me that a time has now come when all of us who are engaged in education work, whether they are Vice-Chancellors, Ministers or Administrators or others, have to do something immediately to restore the image of the nation. It seems to me that this Board, which advises State and Central Governments, should take up this question again. I do not think we can find a solution in a hurry, especially as this is a very complex problem involving human minds. But I do know that it is important and that a Committee of this Board should take up this question of the present stage of student Violence and indiscipline and approach it. imaginatively, not only from the point of view of law and order, but also from the point of view of the young themselves.
I would like to draw the attention of my friends to one collection which is outside, the collection of the books of Acharya Vinobha Bhave. We held a seminar in Wardha where I had the privilege of discussing these things with him. As you all know, Vinobaji is not a reactionary, not a revivalist. But he is deeply rooted in Indian culture and philosophy and is the most forward-looking revolutionary that we know of. The essence of his teaching is the introduction of moral and spiritual values in our educational institutions. Our educationists cannot teach religion. But students should be trained in spiritual or moral values which are not inconsistent with atheism or any religion started any where in the world. There is the Sri Prakasa Committee Report but nothing, has been done to implement it. I think the time has come when, to meet the onset of violence and deterioration of values, we must go to the roots of the problem. We may find out that the roots have dried up so that no amount of dressing up of the plant will help unless water and manure are put into its roots. These, I think, are the moral and spiritual values such as the value of human dignity, brotherhood, fraternity, the overwhelming inspiration of social justice, etc. Somehow we have to get them into the minds which are still young so that they are integrated into their personality. This is a matter to which. I am very anxious that this Board should pay some attention.
One of the most important programmes which we are now developing in the Central sector is the discovery and development of talent. Talent is not only not confined to the upper classes but is distributed in a random way, as Prof. Kothari tells us, all over the community, all over the territories, whether rural or urban. We have, therefore, to search for talent and when found, to encourage it. We have, in the last twenty years, developed a large complex of scholarship programmes. We now award, apart from substantial programme of scholarships given to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes students, 8,500 national scholarships, 20,000 loan scholarships, 500 scholarships for the children of school teachers and 200 scholarships in residential schools. Organisations like UGC, CSIR and NCERT have their own scholarship programmes in addition.
To this large complex, we have made three additions during the current year. First is the scholarships for sports talent at the school stage. I believe that this talent has to be discovered at the middle school stage when the boy is 13-14. We shall award 600 scholarships-400 at the State level and 200 at the national level-and they will be available throughout the school career. The second programme is about the scholarships for cultural talent. We are thinking of instituting scholarships for identifying cultural talent among the school children. In this we would like to include things like music, painting, dancing etc. I came across a young boy studying in XI class whose painting I found was extraordinary. I know also people who have got musical talent at the age of 8 or 10 years. We must discover such cultural talent and encourage it by giving scholarships.
The third scheme which we are introducing relates to the institution of scholarships for the rural areas only. It is a special scheme which has been drawn up very imaginatively
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by my Ministry for identifying talent in rural areas. Under this scheme, scholarships will be awarded to at least two talented boys who stand first and second in each community block. This implies that we are ultimately going to give 20,000 scholarships because there are 5000 community blocks in the country. The scholarships will be awarded at the 7th or 8th class level or where the middle stage ends and the secondary stage starts. This will go up to the higher secondary level. Thus, the total number of scholarships will be 30,000 to 40,000 during the course of three or four years. What is even more important, the scholarships will be linked to a placement programme. National scholars who will be drawn from the rural areas will be provided admission to the best schools in that district. If necessary, assistance will be provided to such schools and in that way, If I may say so, the old idea of having a few good schools in each district will also get implemented. We are also providing, under the scheme, for the training of the backward among the talented boys so that they may come at par with the students coming from forward blocks. Those who are not well and up to the mark will have to be specially coached and helped so that in the course of time, these boys and girls coming from our rural areas can match well with the students coming from urban areas and also with those children who come from upper classes of the society. I think this will be the first concrete example--and a concrete scheme under which the talented children belonging to the rural areas will be able to compete with others.