APPENDIX Z- PLACE OF CRAFT WORK IN BASIC AND POST-WAR EDUCATION-MODIFICATIONS WHICH MAY BE NECESSARY IN THE BOARD'S REPORT ON POST-WAR EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA.
In reproducing below the memorandum received from the Government of Bihar attention is invited to the fact that the Board at their thirteenth meeting appointed a Committee to-
(a) draw up a curriculum on Board lines for use in Basic
Schools with suggestions for variation according to
circumstances ;
(b) prepare a Handbook for teachers in Basic Schools ;
(c) Suggest lines on which institutions for training of
teachers of Basic Schools should be organised.
The interim Report of the Committee is submitted to the Board under item X of the agenda. The final findings of the Committee in regard to the number of hours to be allotted to craft work, the standard to be attained in each craft by each class and the methods of correlation with academic subjects to be adopted and the Organisation of Training Colleges will have a bearing on the problems raised by the Government of Bihar :-
Memorandum by Government of Bihar
The Central Advisory Board of Education Report (January 1944) on educational development says that while the basic education envisaged by it embodies many of the educational ideas contained in the original Hindustani Talimi Sangh scheme, it differs from it in some important particulars. A very important point of difference is in respect of what is called the self-supporting aspect of basic education. The Hindstani Talim Sangh emphassises that basic national education through and based on craft must be self supporting. The Central Advisory Board of Education have said in their report that " they are unable to endorse the view that education at any stage and particularly at the lowest stages can or should be expected to pay for itself through the sale of articles produced by the pupils.
121
The most which can be expected in this respect is that sales should cover the cost of the additional material and equipments required for practical work". The ideal of craft work placed by the Central Advisory Board of Education that the most that may he expected from the craft work in the basic schools is that sales should cover only the cost of additional materials and equipments required for practical work Is not likely to maintain the desired high standard of craft work in the schools. If craft work is not maintained at a high standard it will be bad craft work and Ineffective craft work and it will not be educationally sound. If basic education Is to be a success the standard of craft attainments expected to be reached by teacher and pupils should be really very high.
2. The work in Bihar, although even now in the intial stages in many respects lends support to the view that should be a basic school function as a co-operative community and that should teachers and pupils through their co-operative purposeful craft and other social activities, aim to make themselves self-sufficient in the matter of their balanced school-meal and clothing and equipments and appliances and should the state, while starting the school, provide it with sufficient land and equipments and appliances the necessary trained staff and agency not only for teaching and supervision but also for coordinating the efforts of the school with other development depart- ments and public and private institutions, there is no reason why with the further development of technique and with greater experience, the school may not become appreciably, if not fully, self supporting.
3. The Central Advisory Board of Education has said in its, report that High School Education should on no account be considered simply as a preliminary to University Education, but as a stage complete in itself and that while it will remain a very important function of the High Schools to pass on their most able pupils to Universities or other institutions of equivalent standard, the large majority of high school leavers should receive an education that will fit them for direct entry into occupation or professions. It is therefore, necessary that high schools of the future, whether academic or technical, should not be unduly dominated by the requirements of the universities but that the utmost importance is to be attached to preparing the great bulk of their pupils who will not proceed to universities for entry into useful and remunerative employment of all kinds imediately on leaving schools (vide para. 5, Chapter III). If students at the and of the course are to be enabled to have easy entry into useful and remunerative employment on their leaving school, it is necessary that the school organisation should provide them with opportunities' to earn for their own maintenance and for the maintenance of the school during the posts. basic, or high school stage. In the experimental high school that the Government of Bihar have started the Champaran, it has been definitely stressed that all the pupils should pay fees by earning thorn through opportunities provided for the purpose in the school organisation and should, while receiving post basic education, make themselves as far as possible self-supporting in the matter of provision of their balanced diet and clothing. Should the experiment prove even partially successful, it will lead to the realisation of the objective of the High school that the Central Advisory Board of Education get before the country in 1944. The Chapter on high school education, however, does not even mention this point of self-sufficiency and self. support, much less stress it. Without such a stress, it will not be possible for the state to provide post-basic education of the desired type on a nation wide scale and the few that will receive the high school education, will not be fitted for entry into remunerative employment immediately on leaving school.
4. Fees and free studentship and the selective processes for high school education
The Central Advisory Board of Education have advocated and rightly, selective principles for picking out qualified pupils for high school education. They have recommended that this should be done at, the stage that they complete five years of basic education. Assuming that "for sometime to come, it may not be practicable
122
to make high school education either free or compulsory ", they have said that if the selective process is to be made a success, " those without the necessary financial resources will have to be provided with free places and in many cases with maintenance allowance or stipends as well." Indeed, they have said in so many words that " it is only by the assurance of adequate financial assistance in necessitious cases that the selective process for High Schools can be carried out fairly and effectively. They have consequently expressed an opinion that " It is reasonable to assume that 50 per cent. of the pupils in High Schools in India will have to be provided with free places or with the total or partial remission of fees with an equivalent financial effect. Since those required to pay fees will generally speaking belong to fairly well to do, families, it is reasonable to take the average fee income at Rs. 6 per mensem from each pupil ". Experience shows that there will be found to be very few we] [-to do families in the rural areas of India that will be in a position to afford payment of, fees for their children attending high schools each for a 6 years' course at the average of Rs. 6 per month. The result will be that even if free studentships and maintenance stipends were to be allowed to the extent of 50 per cent. of the total enrolment of the schools (which is very much doubtful indeed under the existing financial obligations of the country) of the remaining 50 per cent. of the pupils fitted for high school education, very few may find it possible to go up for such education. If all those fitted for high school education from among the pupils completing the full eight years course of Basic Education are to receive that education in a country like India fees as such should not be charged from any student attending the high school whether he be financially capable or not for paying the same. Instead the school work should be so organised that the student irrespective of the financial position of their families working individually and co-operatively under the now High School System suiting the genius and the requirements of the Indian people scattered in its villages, should be able to contribute, by their labour and the price of the articles produced by them on an average a fixed sum a month or a year a head (to be deter mined in the light of an experiment) towards the upkeep of the school, besides meeting as far as practicable their own maintenance charges (balanced food and clothing) ; and that this contribution from self-earning should be made by all without any distinction and that no free places or stipends for maintenance be allowed to any on grounds of poverty. It will be, a very valuable experiment in a poor country like India. It will serve to keep alive the ideal of self-dependence learnt at the basic stage strengthen the sense of one's own worth and give reality to the training for direct entry into life so well advocated by the Central Advisory Board of Education and that there will be some test of how far the students have been able to profit by their training in the direction of fitting themselves for a successful pursuit of their future professions or careers. It will also help to remove the sense of financial inferiority one set of students who will be given free education as compared with the other which will pay for it.
5. Without a proper appreciation of an emphasis on the economic aspects of the scheme of basic and post-basic education, the cost of the programme of the Post-war Educational Development as envisaged by the Central Advisory Board of Education is likely to prove prohibitive. It is not possible to reduce the cost as estimated by the Central Advisory Board of Education. The scales and salaries recommended for the teachers of all grades of institutions are the minimum likely to attract qualified teachers. If anything under present conditions these scales will have to be improved. They cannot be reduced. The estimates of the Central advisory Board of Education Scheme are based on the principle that in all institutions the teachers salaries represent 70 per cent. of the gross cost. With no possibility of reduction in this item, the estimates may be regarded as the minimum to be incurred for a nation wide programme of educational development. An emphasis on the self-sufficient aspect of basic and post-basic education is therefore of the utmost importance. If the teachers and the pupils of all the types and grades of institutions do not consciously and co-operatively engage themselves in the great enterprise of self-sufficient and self-supporting institutions the Central Advisory Board schemes drawn up
123
With all the good will for them will have little chance of being even partially imprmented, much less substantially and fully. That the craft work in basic schools and the professional work in the post- basic schools will not be educationally. sound without attainment of due efficiency in such work has already been emphasised in the very first para of the memorandum.
6. Training of Teachers.-The programme and procedure recommended for the training of teachers in Chapter VII of the Central Advisory Board Report appear to need clarification, amplification and in Some respects, modification. Two years of subsidy to pupils selected for training as teachers in the top classes of existing type high schools, followed by two years and three years, respectively, with payment of maintenance charges, at training schools for teachership of junior and senior classes respectively, the programme appears to be wasteful and expensive. The existing type of high schools preparing for a uniform matriculation examination with a predominantly litrary curriculum cannot be used as the initial training ground for teachers of the new type schools imparting education in and through crafts and social and environmental activities. Again very few of really meritorious matriculates will offer themselves for two and three years continuous courses of training with propspects of Rs.30-1-35-3/2-50 per month and Rs. 40-2- 80 per month respectively. If the holders of matriculation pass certificates be not available in sufficient numbers beginning, young men and women of the required social type having knowledge of the matriculation standard of approximating it, but having in them the qualities of physical fitness, intelligence, mental alertness, aptitude for craft work, initiative capacity for Organisation etc., may be recruited for training to make up the required number and given the necessary training in continuous two years' courses and appointed as teachers of junior classes. Such of them as prove by actual work in a basic school to be capable of taking the senior classes, may later be deputed to special and refresher courses to fit them for the same further. Picking out and training in teaching during the last two years of the High School course will be possible only when we have post-basic high schools functioning which while qualifying the most talented among its pupils for University, will fit the majority, for direct entry into occupations and professions, one of which must be the profession of teaching
7. The plan of working for the first and second years of a basic training school as envisaged in para. 6 of the Chapter VII of the report cannot give us the teachers suited for imparting education through productive activities. The teachers of Basic Education to be able to produce a new type of individual, all whose faculties physical intellectual aesthetic and spiritual have been developed into an integral personality, must themselves be harmoniously developed individuals and must have understanding of the social objectives of the New Education and a practical working knowledge of the community life on co-operative basis. This objective can be fulfilled only if the training centre is organised as a self-sufficient community based on co-operative work, which, as far as possible, produces its necessities as regards balanced diet and adequate clothing and which has also all necessary facilities for cultura life. The educational programme both practical and theoretical of the training centre functioning as a democratic community based on co-operative work, Must needs therefore, be developed round the activities of the educational community such as the production and preparation of food, clothing, programme of personal and community cleanliness, health and hygiene, programme of rural service and other cultural activities.
8. The special function of a basic training college would need to be brought more fully than has been done in para. 8 of the Chapter. If the training college is to attract and make its mark upon the young man or woman who would be a graduate teacher of a post-basic high school or an instructor in a basic training school or an administrative officer in the basic education system. It appears to be necessary that it should be so organised as to give proper training not only in the art of teaching and supervising but also in some art or craft sufficient enough to enable the trainees to instruct and guide the teachers and instructions for the basic schools and post Basic high schools and the training schools for don. graduate in their craft and art
124
training as well, both theoretical and practical. A Training College, therefore, should have, besides the necessary class rooms, physical and psychological laboratoriesart rooms geography rooms and so on, also an agricultural farm and workshed for the practice of one or more crafts.
9. Chapter VII of the report, therefore, appears to need a substantial modification if the new training institutions are not to be more expanded replicas of the old type training institutions with all their defects as enumerates in its para 2, and, in this chapter as in all other chapters, particularly I and III dealing with Basic Education and High School Education respectively due emphasis should be laid on the self-sufficient and self supporting I aspect of education."