CABE SILVER JUBILEE SOUVENIR (1935-1960)

 FOREWORD

The Central Advisory Board of Education, the oldest and the most important advisory body of the Government of India in education, was established in 1935 and is now completing the first twenty-five years of its existence. This volume, which contains the proceedings of the twenty seven meetings of the Board held during this period, is now being published on the occasion of its Silver jubilee.

The idea that there should be a Central Advisory Board of Education was first put forward by the Calcutta University Commission (1917-19) which felt "that the Government of India can' perform an invaluable function by defining the general aims of educational policy, by giving advice and assistance to local governments and to universities" and "by supplying organised information as to the development of educational ideas in the various provinces, and also elsewhere than in India". Almost simultaneously the Government of India Act, 1919, decided to make education mainly a provincial and a transferred subject and to limit the 'control' of the Central Govern- ment over it to the minimum. This fundamental decision changed the character of the Government of India from that of an executive to an advisory authority ; and consequently, the Secretariat Procedure Committee set up to implement the Government of India Act, 1919, observed that, in future, the executive authority of the Government of India would be mainly exercised through moral persuasion and recommended that, "in place of giving executive orders, it should tend more and more to become a centre of the best information, research and advice". This recommendation made the adoption of the suggestion made earlier by the Calcutta University Commission all the more imperative and accordingly, a Central Advisory Board of Education was set up in 1921. It did a good deal of useful work but owing to a financial crisis calling for drastic retrenchments, it had to be abolished in 1923. For the next twelve years, there was no central body to advise the Government of India in educational matters. Soon however a feeling of regret at the discontinuance of the Central Advisory Board was felt and the matter was continuously discussed until the present Central Advisory Board of Education was constituted thanks to the efforts of the late Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai in September, 1935. The first meeting of the reconstituted Board was held in New Delhi on the 19th and the 20th of December of the same year.

The practice adopted by the Board has been to hold one meeting every year, although the record of the twenty five years that there were no meetings in 1937 and 1939 and two meetings each in 1938, 1943 and 1950. The total number of meetings held is thus twenty seven. For reasons of convenience, most of these meetings were held at New Delhi but at the invitations of some provincial or state governments, the Board also met at Simla (1940), Madras (1941) and 1950), Hyderabad (1942), Lucknow (1943), Dehra Dun (1943), Baroda (1944), Karachi (1945, Mysore (1946), Bombay (1947), Allahabad (1949), Cuttack (1950) and Trivandrum (1951). Of the existing states, it has not yet met in Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

These twenty-seven meetings of the Board have been presided over by ten very distinguished Chairmen, namely Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai (first, fifth and sixth meetings), Kunwar Shri Jagdish Prasad (second, third and fourth meetings), Sir Maurice Gwyer (seventh and ninth meetings), Sir Jogender Singh (eight, tenth, and eleventh meetings), Rt. Rev. G. D. Barne (twelfth meeting), Shri C. Rajagopalachariar (thirteenth meetings), Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-second, twenty- third and twenty-fifth meetings), Shri B. G. Kher (eighteenth meeting), Shri N. K. Sidhanta (twenty-first meeting), and Dr. K. L. Shrimali (twenty-fourth, twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh meetings).

The constitution of the Board has not undergone any radical changes during the last twenty-five years. In 1935, its functions were defined very broadly as follows :

(a) to advise on any educational question which may referred to it by the Government of India or by any local government; and

(b) to call for information and advice regarding educational developments of special interest or value to India; to examine this information and to circulate it with its recommendations to the Government of India and to local governments.

It was then pointed out that this broad definition was deliberately adopted with a view to making the Board a live organism and endowing it both with incentive and opportunity for growth. No change in this definition of functions has, therefore, been even attempted. But the composition of the Board had to be modified from time to time, mainly because of constitutional changes or reorganisation of states and the original strength of twenty-four members has now been increased to forty-four. The last twenty-five years, the Board has included distinguished educationists from all parts character of the membership, however, has remained unchanged and throughout the of the country and the representatives of the Government of India, the state governments, the Legislature, and the universities.

The pre-eminence of the Central Advisory Board of Education in India becomes at once evident from its composition. Prior to 1947, the Member in charge of Education in the Executive Council of the Governor-General of India used to be its Chairman ex-officio and now the post is held by the Union Minister for Education. The Educational Adviser to the Government of India is also and ex-officio member of the Board. The State governments are represented generally by their Education Ministers and, in their absence, by the Directors of Education. The universities and the Parliament have also a fair representation and almost all the distinguished educationists of the country have been members of the Board at one time or another. For convenience of reference, the names of all the members of the Board during last twenty five years are given in Appendix I which will indicate how the best educational talent in the country has always found a representation on this Body. There is no other Advisory Board in the Ministry of Education which has such a distinguished compo- sition and it lends a unique significance to its deliberations and recommendations.

A careful perusal of the proceedings of the Board will show that the Board's activities fall into three distinct periods each of which has some peculiar characteristics

of its, own, The first period extends from the establishment of the Board in 1935 to the adoption of the Plan of Post-war Educational Development in India at the Baroda meeting held in 1944. This may be described as a period of preliminary studies and planning. Even in the very first meeting, the attention of the Board was drawn to the increasing unemployment, among the educated, persons and the, Board came to the, conclusion that one of the important ways of combating this evil would be to reconstruct the educational system of the country. Accordingly, the Board took up this problem for investigation. A number of committees were appointed to examine the different sectors of education and to make their recommendation to the Board; and finally, in the light of all these recommendations, a comprehensive plan of educational development was prepared for the country as whole. This Plan of Post-war Educational Development was the first document to be prepared with the object of visualising a national system of education for India. It lays down the targets to be reached at each stage of education, indicates the manner in which the different stages and fields of education are to be integrated with one another, estimates the cost of implementing its recommendations and suggests a tentative programme spread over 40 years for the realisation of its objectives. It was never claimed, even by the authors of the Plan itself, that it was perfect or free from all, defects. But this great document has a historical significance of its own as the first attempt made in the country for devising a national system of education which would be comparable with that prevailing in the progressive countries of the West. The preparation of this document, therefore is one of the most outstanding contributions which the Board has made to the solution of our educational problems and it may be said that the modern movement for educational planning in India began with the Sargent Plan of 1944.

The six years from 1945 to 1951 form the second period in. the deliberations of the Board. The political background underwent a complete revolution in this period with, the attainment of Independence, the integration of the Princely states and the framing of the Constitution; and although the plans for educational recon- struction were broadly ready, no large-scale implementation was immediately possible in view of the tremendous problems created by political upheavals. Naturally, these changes and difficulties had their effect on the Board also. Hitherto, its jurisdiction had been limited to the so-called 'British India'. With the integration of the princely states, this artificial distinction disappeared and it began to deal with education in all parts of the country. Under the new Constitution, the defining of 'educational policies' became a partnership between the centre and the states and this increased the significance of the Board as the supreme organ in which the centre and the states collaborated for this purpose. But in view of the political and other difficulties, the deliberations of the Board during this period deal with the preparation of detailed plans or with preliminaries to implementation rather than with a drive for the expansion and improvement of education. The most important subject discussed in this period was the crucial problem of university education. A special session of the Board was convened in April 1950 to discuss the Report of the University Education Commission (1948-49) and it was on the recommendation of the Board that a University Grants Committee was first established. Another important subject discussed

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by the Board was that of reducing the period of 40 years proposed by the Sargent Plan for the full implementation of its recommendations; a committee, presided over by the late Shri B. G. Kher examined the financial requirement and recommended that an attempt should be made to implement the Plan in sixteen years. It was also at the suggestion of the Board that the All India Council for Technical Education was established and the recent development of technical education in the country is largely due to this happy beginning. Other important suggestions of the Board led to the creation of the Central Board of Hindi Terminology (which did extremely valuable work and is now converted into a Standing Commission on Scientific Terminology) and to the adoption of uniform Braille for India. Among other things that the Board discussed and promoted, mention may also be made of the programme of basic and social education, promotion of inter-state understanding, popularisation of Gandhian literature, etc.

With 1951, the era of Planning began in India and as may be easily anticipated, the deliberations of the Board during the last ten years have centred round the innumerable problems that arise in the preparation and implementation of the central and state Plans of Education. To begin with, the Board has given useful advice on the preparation of educational plans in the centre and the states and also watched their progress from year to year. In addition, it has discussed the reconstruction of the major sectors of education in great detail. For instance, is has discussed the problem of the reconstruction of secondary education in accordance with the recommendations of the Mudaliar Commission. It appointed a special committee to look into important recommendations of the Commission and to indicate their order of priority. The report of this committee was the basis of two programmes implemented during the second Five-Year Plan, viz., the conversion of selected secondary schools into multipurpose schools and the replacement of the old secondary system by the new higher secondary system. The need to expand facilities for elementary education in accordance with the Constitutional directive also continue to engage the attention of the Board; and as one of the important measures to be adopted for this purpose, it endorsed the idea of nation-wide educational survey to determine, among other things, the exact extent of expansion of the educational facilities required at the elementary level. The survey has since been completed and a very useful report thereon has been published. The Board also discussed the problems of girls' education and the urgency to expand facilities for girls at all levels in the context of recommendations made by the National Committee on Women's Education. Several other intricate problems of education were also discussed by the Board during this period. Among these, mention may be made of the need to re-establish an all-India Education Service, The causes and remedies of student unrest and discipline, the problem of providing moral and religious instruction in educational institutions, the need to restrict admissions to universities in the light of the need for qualitative improvement, and the problem of securing better teachers for education at all levels. In the present context of the Con- stitutional position and planning techniques adopted by the Government of India, education needs a common platform where the centre and the state can meet together

and take joint decisions of policy. It is precisely this platform at the highest level which the Central Advisory Board of Education has provided for the last ten years.

It has been a practice of the Ministry of Education to refer every important problem in education to the Board for its opinion and advice. Consequently, the recommendations of the Board cover every important problem in every sector of education. Moreover, the Addresses of the Chairmen give a review of the important educational developments during the preceding year and discuss the significant educational problems of the day in some detail. This Volume, therefore, can be a valuable guide to the understanding of the development of education in India during the last 25 years and will, it is hoped, prove a useful standard work of reference to the students of Indian Education.

PREM KIRPAL, Educational Adviser to the Government of India.

NEW DELHI, 19th December, 1960.