APPENDIX A(h)- REPORT ON THE WORK OF THE COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
With reference to item XV (a) of the agenda of the 15th meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education in India held at Allahabad in January, 1949 regarding the preparation of suitable literature for children in various languages, the Board recommended that the Government.of India should appoint a committee to work out the details of the scheme for the production
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of juvenile literature. In pursuance of this recommendation a committee of experts consisting of the following members was appointed to consider the question.
1. Prof. Humayun Kabir (Chairman), Joint Secretary, Ministry of Education.
2. Dr. I. R. Khan, Joint Secretary, Education Department, U. P. Government.
3. Mr. K. Swaminathan, Principal, Government Arts College, Madras.
4. Mr. J. H. Collins, Manager, Macmillans & Co., Bombay.
5. Mr. Budhadev Bose, Calcutta.
6. Mr. Hamid Ali Khan, Jamia Millia.
7. Mr. Sudhir Khastagir, Doon School, Dehra Dun.
8. Dr. (Mrs.) L. Srinivasan, Vice Principal, Central Institute of Education.
Dr. S.M.S. Chari (Secretary)
(curator) Central Bureau of
Education.
This committee met on 17th November, 1950 at New Delhi with Mr. Humayun Kabir in the Chair. All the members, except Dr. I. R. Khan, Mr. Swaminathan and Mr. Khastagir, were present. Dr. A. M. D'Rozario, Deputy Education Adviser and Mr. K. L. Joshi, Assistant Educational Adviser also attended the meeting. The Committee discussed the various items of the agenda, copy enclosed (Annexure I), and made recommendations thereon The proceedings of the meeting will be circulated later (Annexure II).
(ANNEXURE I)
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
Children's Literature Committee Time 11 A. M.
1st Meeting.
Place : Room No. 60 North Block,
Central Secretariat,
New Delhi.
Date : November 17th, 1950
AGENDA 1.(i) To consider the question of establishment of regional bodies for the promotion of children's literature for all the 13 languages enumerated in the Constitution of India.
(ii) To consider the functions of these regional centres :
(a) to collect children's literature and literature on children's literature.
(b) to prepare a bibliography of the above types of literature in the regional languages.
(c) to offer suggestion for development of children's literature in these languages.
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2. To define suitable types of children's literature and lay down standards which the different types should fulfil.
3. To consider the ways and means of encouraging the development of children's literature.
4. To consider the actual needs of the publishing industry concerning children's literature and to make suggestions as to how to fulfil these needs.
5. (i) To consider the desirability of setting up a central body for encouraging the production of children's literature.
(ii) To consider the functions of the central body :
(a) to offer suggestions to regional bodies for promoting specific type of literature in which the regional languages may be deficient.
(b) to bring to the notice of regional bodies desirable literature in other regional languages fit for translation etc.
6. Any other matter that may be raised with the consent of the Chairman.
ANNEXURE II
Proceedings of the Children's Literature Committee held on 17th
November, 1950 at 11 A.M. at New Delhi; The meeting of the Children's Literature Committee was held at 11A.M. on the 17th November 1950 in the Ministry of Education, Central Secretariat, New Delhi.
The following members were present :
1. Mr. Humyun Kabir, Joint Educational Adviser to the Government of India, Ministry of Education, New Delhi.
(Chairman)
2. Mr. J. H. Collins, Manager, Macmillan & Co., Bombay.
3. Mr. Budhadeva Bose, Bengali Author, Calcutta.
4. Mr. Hamid Ali Khan. Managing Director. Maktaba Jamia Ltd., Jamia Nagar, Delhi.
5. Dr. (Mrs.) L. Srinivasan. Vice-principal, Central Institute of Education, Cavalry Lines, Delhi.
6. Dr. S.M.S. Chari, Curator. Central Bureau of Education, Ministry of Education, New Delhi.
(Secretary).
Dr. A.M.D'Rozario, Deputy Educational Adviser and Mr. K.L. Joshi, Assistant Educational Adviser were also present.
The following members were unable to attend the meeting :
1. Dr. I.R. Khan, Joint Secretary to the Government of Uttar Pradesh, Education Department. Lucknow.
2. Mr. K. Swaminathan. Principal. Government Arts College, Madras.
3 Mr. Sudhir Khastagir, Doon School, Debra Dun.
The Chairman. welcoming the members of the Committee explained the objects of the meeting, and said that at present the conditions of production of children's literature in Indian languages are not fully satisfactory. There
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are two types of -literature required for children : (i) text books, (ii) supplementary and general books for children. Both text books and general literature need to be improved both in respect of quality of contents and get-up. There has been an increase in the production of children's literature during the last 15 or 20 years but the need for improvement of standards is still pressing, While such literature must be in regional languages, and hence the primary work will have to be done in the different States, there were obvious advantages in having consultations and discussions between representatives of different regions and languages. Composition of what was being done in different areas and exchange of information could lead to valuable results. This Committee has, therefore, been convened to provide facilities for such discussions, and since educators, authors, publishers and State Governments are all equally interested in projects for the development of children's literature, an attempt has been made to secure representatives of each interest. While such representation cannot be regarded as complete or adequate, it was hoped that discussions of the Committee may help to suggest ways and means of improving the production of children's literature in differ- ent Indian languages.
Before discussing the items of the agenda, the Chairman drew the attention of the members to the letter sent by Mr. Swaminathan giving his comments particularly regarding item No. 2. Members agreed in general with the views expressed by Mr. Swaminathan.
The Committee then considered the agenda.
Item 1. The Committee generally agreed with the proposal for establishing regional bodies for the promotion of children's literature in all the 13 languages enumerated in the Constitution of India. The question whether the text books should also be included in children's literature was discussed in detail. It was agreed that the present Committee should confine its attention to the question of production of supplementary books for children as TextBooks Committees set up by the various State Governments deal with matters relating to text-books.
It was resolved that the State Governments should be advised to establish regional bodies consisting of, among others, representatives of State Education Departments, authors, publishers, printer, libraries, teachers and representatives of text books committees in order to advise Government on matters relating to production of children's literature.
The functions of these bodies should be advisory and should inter alia include the following :
(a) to collect children's literature and books on children's literature.
(b) to prepare a bibliography of the above type of literature in the regional languages.
(c) to promote development of children's literature in these languages.
(d) to encourage the establishment of school libraries and of children's sections in public libraries.
Item 2. Regarding types of literature for children, the Committee expressed the opinion that children's interests are varied and children's literature should, therefore, be as varied as possible. It was, however, suggested that the literature for children should cover at least the following aspects-
1. Picture books and Story books.
2. Fairy Tales and Fables.
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3. Myths and Legends.
4. History and Biography.
5. Travels and Explorations.
6. Nature Study.
7. Science,
8. Poetry.
9. Arts, Music and Drama.
10. Any other subjects of every day life of children.
This is however only a suggestive and. hot an exhaustive list.
Regarding the question of laying down standard of production of such literature, the Committee felt that the matter should be left to the discretion of the regional bodies.
Item 3. The question regarding the ways and means of encouraging the development of children's literature was discussed at length, The Committee recommended that a number of prizes should be instituted for award to the best books for children in order to encourage authors and producers. The prizes should be awarded to (a) the best books from the point of view of contents, (b) the best books from the point of view of production, (c) the best books both from the point of view of matter and production. It was also suggested that the regional bodies should consider the advisability of giving prizes to manuscripts on such subjects as picture books. The Committee agreed that the value of each prize should be about one thousand rupees.
The Committee was of the opinion that exhibitions of children's books and of illustrations for juvenile literature should be organised from time to time to encourage development of children's literature.
Item 4. Mr. Collins pointed out the difficulties which the publishers are facing in the matter of production of children's literature. The main difficulty was of securing an adequate market for books. To meet this difficulty two suggestions were made : (i) Publishers should be assured of a steady market for text-book" for a specified number of years. (It was suggested that three years was a reasonable minimum for the purpose). (ii) Publishers may be encouraged by the issue of certificates by the regional bodies. These certificates may specify, selected books as specially suitable for children.
Both the suggestions were approved by the Committee.
The Committee also recommended that the State Governments should make some provision for regular additions of children's books to school libraries. The schools should also be encouraged to provide in the school timetable a period for study in the library.
In order to help in. the reduction of cost of production, the Committee recommended that publishers should try to pool resources as far as blocks etc. for children's literature are concerned. Books whether text-books or juvenile literature will from the nature of the case have to be in different languages, bat this should not bar the use of the same blocks. State Governments may be requested to draw the attention of publishers to this suggestion of the Committee.
Item 5 The Committee agreed that there should be a central body for encouraging the production of children's literature whose functions should be (a) to offer suggestions to regional bodies for promoting specified type of literature, (b) to bring to the notice of the regional bodies literature in other
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regional and foreign languages fit for translation etc., (c) to report periodically on the position of the production of children's literature and its use in the country.
There was some discussion as to whether there should be a separate body to perform these functions. The Committee was of the opinion that for the time being, the Central Bureau of Education in the Ministry of Education should perform these functions.
Item 6. It was brought to the notice of the Committee that the laying down of rigid price levels for text books has in some cases led to the deterioration in the standard of production of text books, and at least some publishers felt that some relaxation by State Governments of such rigid price control in the ease of text books would lead to improvement of the position. The Committee agreed in general with the suggestion and recommended that it should be brought to the notice of State Governments.