APPENDIX P (c)- CO-ORDINATION OF EFFORTS IN THE FIELD OF VISUAL AND AUDITORY EDUCATION
The following note has boon received from the Government of Bombay:-
" In our country, Adult Education is beset with peculiar difficulties. We have to tackle the problem of mass illiteracy, but for various reasons, it is difficult even to secure the regular attendance of the adults. For one thing, they often feel no interest in merely learning the alphabet. After a long day of hard work or perhaps of unemployment, frustration and half-starvation, it does not strike them as worth their while. If adult centres are to be successful it is necessary to make them more interesting for the adults and to help them to realize that the work being done there does matter. One of the ways in which this can be done is by giving them something more substantial than the alphabet to pore over, by bringing to them in an attractive form useful knowledge bearing on their life. if a worker in a village can discuss with the adults problems of civics and sanitation and hygiene, and how they can improve their agriculture and carry out other useful projects Co-oporatively, if he can ease some of the avoidable hardships from which they suffer because of ignorance. The centre will become a quickening influence in their life and they might be brought round to take interest in due course even in the learning of the alphabet and the acquisition of literacy. But a more effective method of imparting useful knowledge, which is not conditional on the previous acquisition of literacy and which attracts adults almost irresistibly, is through the use of Visual and Auditory apparatus and media. These modern media of mass communication have made such groat strides in recent years that, through them we can reach millions of persons easily and can exercise powerful formative influence over their minds, and emotions. But in India we have hardly made even a beginning with utilizing them and there is no clear recognition of the fact that they must be visualized as integral parts of a total educational pattern, in which the school, the home, the Press, the Radio, the Films, and all other agencies of propaganda (in the better sense of the word) are harnessed to a common educational objective namely, the enriching of people's minds and the inculcation of right values. Unfortunately these agencies have boon generally dominated by commercial or narrow political ends. It is high time now that the national Government and educational authorities started to make use of them for educational purposes. They should not be deterred by the misleading argument that is sometimes brought forward to the effect that this would be " indoctrination " because, in a sense, indoctrination is always going on only it is, as a rule in the wrong direction. There should be no reasonable objection at all to these agencies being utilized., for a change, to impart useful knowledge or decent values and standards of citizenship. To give one instance, there is no more urgent and emphatic problem to-day-even from the point of view of Adult Education-than that of arresting the communal frenzy which has overtaken large sections of the people and restoring communal harmony and peace. What a glorious and effective role could be played in this great cause by the news papers, the Radio, the films, the theatre and other cultural organizations. And yet how pitifully inadequate is their response to the occasion, and their realization. of their power or good. It is definitely necessary that some sort of an effective liaison agency should be set up which would enable the Education Department to make its full contribution to the proper orientation of these dynamic forces in the cause of national education.
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Apart from this wider aspect of the matter, it is necessary to have an organization in every Province, with some kind of a coordinating agency at the centre, which would be concerned with the production - or directing the production of all kinds of material for visual and auditory education charts, diagrams, maps, pictures (if the work done in this direction by the JAMIA through its Adult Education Department), lantern slides, films and special Radio programmes suited to different regions and classes of people. In addition, there should be mobile Adult Education Vans fitted up with the necessary apparatus and equipment for visual and auditory education and carrying a staff of persons who can, amongst themselves, attend to difference aspects of adult education, health education, civic education, programmes of folk culture etc. They will go from village to village and spend number of days in each and try to quicken and enlarge their interests by making use of all the equipment at their disposal. Occasional visits paid by such a staff would servo to keep alive the work of the local centres and stimulate the countryside which is often to relapse into apathy. Such work has been attempted quite successfully in Mexico and it being planned also in China as part of a Pilot Project in Adult Education. In India, too, we should broaden the purpose and content of Adult Education and co-ordinate all methods-oral, visual, auditory-to achive this end.
Perhaps from the point of view of economy as well as the standard of production, it would be an advantage to plan and direct the production of educational films etc. (which is an expensive business) centrally but to associate suitable Provincial representatives with the directing agency. So far as the charts, diagrams etc, are concerned, they can well be produced locally to suit local needs but it would be an advantage to arrange for an interchange of all such publications so that now and creative ideas worked out in one Province may be brought to the notice, of all the Provinces".
2. The need for the use of visual and auditory aids to education has been emphasised in the Board's Report on Postwar Educational Development in the chapter on Adult Education. The Board considered the ways and means of building up an efficient educational film service in India at their Twelfth Meeting in 1946 mid recommended that educational films should be collected in a Film Library to be built by the Central Education Department, and that ways and means should be devised for distributing the films on as wide a basis as possible. In regard to the production of educational films, the Board recommended that a beginning should be made with 16 mm. films, the actual production, dubbing and other technical aspects being under the Ministry of Information and Broad-casting, while the Ministry of Education was to be responsible for the supervision of themes and editing of films. The Board also recommended that it might be desirable to make the exhibition of a prescribed footage of educational films obligatory by law in all cinema houses.
3. The Central Bureau of Education at present has a few projectors, including a 35 mm. Sound Projector and 164 films (84 of 16mm. and 80 of 35mm). Rule, for their circulation to Province; and educational institutions have been framed. All expansion scheme for this Library has been accepted by the Government (if India at a total cost of Rs. 4,12 000 (non-recurring) spread over 5 years, for the purchase of films and projectors and a recurring annual cost of Rs. 15,060 for staff, maintenance, etc.
The production of Educational films could not be undertaken as the Information Films of India Organisation had been abolished. It has very recently been decided to revive this Organisation and it is hoped that further progress will now be made in the production of educational films.
Regarding the compulsory exhibition of a specified foot age of educational films in cinema houses, it was found that with the lapse of the powers under the Defence of India Rules, specified legislation would have to be passed. To this end, information is being collected from certain foreign countries as to any similar measures adopted by their Government.
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4. The question. of School Broadcasts has been considers from time to time by the Board, At their thirteenth meeting held in January 1947 the Board noted that some suitable broadcasts were being arranged for school children, but that in de absence of radio receiving sets in most of the school very few children derived any benefit from such broadcasts. The Board was of opinion that Provincial Governments etc. should be requsted to provide requisite facilitie for school children to enable them to take advantage of educational broadcasts. The Board also reiterated their previous recommendation for a closer Collaboration between All India Radio and the educational authorities. At present All India Radio programmes for schools receive guidance from Consultative Panels for Educational Broadcasts, which are formed at each station in consultation with the Provincial Government, with whom, contact is maintained through the appropriate Educational Officers.