 PROCEEDINGS OF THE MEETINGS OF
 THE BOARD

(i) FIRST MEETING-DECEMBER, 1935

Chairman's Speech (Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai)

"IT is a great pleasure and privilege to me, Ladies and Gentlemen, to welcome you to Delhi this morning. Indeed, I do not use the language of exaggeration when I say that I regard the inauguration of your proceedings today as the proudest event of my tenure of my present office. This feeling is due to your eminence and representative character, and to the pre-eminence, amongst the national problems of the day, of the problem to the solution of which the Board is immediately called upon to set its hand. Your distinction, Ladies and Gentlemen, and claim to speak for the various interests that you represent, needs no testimony from me; it must be of nation-wide acceptance. Not only educational achievement but achievements of rare quality in every sphere of activity are represented by you. We have on the Board Hon'ble Ministers who, in their respective provinces, direct educational policy; ladies like Rajkumari Amrit Kaur and Lady Grigg, whose close touch with public activities relating to the women of India should enable them to give valuable advice about the educational needs of Indian womanhood; a great lawyer, Sir Tej Sapru, a great administrator, Sir Akbar Hydari, whose absence owing to indisposition we all deplore, a great humanist, B. Bhagwan Das, who have taken a life-long and fruitful interest in educational problems. I need not particularise further. To be associated with you all is therefore a matter of pride to one whose sole claim to be in your midst is good fortune. The vital importance to India of educational reconstruction, which is the subject that, in my opinion, demands your attention first, has roused such widespread interest, evoked such wealth of comment in recent years that no words of mine are needed to give it added significance or emphasis. Education goes to the very root of individual contentment and national prosperity; neglect it, and there will be neither national prosperity nor individual contentment. Indeed, their opposites will prevail.

"A very dear and distinguished friend, who will remain nameless, told me the ,other day that the Board had been criticised as the superfluous revival of the lifeless piece of machinery; a body without executive power, and, therefore, without utility. To the extent that this criticism alludes to the educational autonomy of the provinces and states it is true, but nothing new or disheartening. None of us would, even if we could, centralise educational initiative or control; one might as well attempt an educational Pan-Europa, and with equal prospects of success. Not only is centralisation politically unthinkable on the eve of Provincial Autonomy; the size and population of the various provinces make it administratively impracticable. But the charge of lifelessness could only have been made by people ignorant of the motive power of ideas. The main function of the Board is to test and sift and cohere the current educational thoughts of the day and to impart to what may result from such creative effort the lasting impulse of a progressive policy. It is because we aimed at ensuring the fruition of advice into action that we have invited Hon'ble Ministers in charge of Education in the provinces to sit on the Board. It is because we aimed at viewing

PROCEEDINGS OF FIRST MEETING

the whole field of education in one conspectus that apart from Hon'ble Ministers of Education and their Directors of Public Instruction, we have invited the Inter-University Board to send us three representatives. It is because we want our effort to be quickened and influenced by responsible political opinion that we have with us representatives of the Legislature. If we fail in making the Board useful, Ladies and Gentlemen, it will be either because the advice we give is unsound or the springs of action in the provinces fail to move. Either may happen, but it is a singularly barren form of pessimism to make that possibility the basis of a condemnation of the Board in advance. Destructive perfection is not difficult of attainment; constructive effort, however, imperfect, is frequently of greater value. The alternative to the Board is uncoordinated activity, fitful effort, overlapping, error, avoidable waste. No patriotic Indian could desire this.

"The list of business that Sir George Anderson has circulated has been deliberately kept short. We were anxious to keep the agenda light, so that the Board could give full attention to the subjects that have been included. Outstanding among these is the relation of unemployment to education. We have, fortunately, amongst us here today persons who have made a special study of the problem. I refer, in particular, to Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, whose readiness to serve on the Board, in spite of the many demands on his time, is only another manifestation of proved devotion to public service. With their help, gentlemen, it should be possible, at any rate, to make final diagnosis of the disease and to suggest the broad line or lines of treatment. I have no wish to limit the discussion in any way, but I would suggest that we do not spend much time in disputing whether the disease exists. The symptoms crowd in on any observer with poignant insistence. 'Educated' young men are unemployed; many of them show an invincible disinclination for any work other than the drudgeries of literacy, a pathetic incapacity for even moderate proficiency in that mechanical pursuit, a tragic lack of aptitude for anything else. No exceptional perspicacity is needed to discern that this evil must largely result from the system of education that produces them, and the sense of social values that tolerates the system. To change that false or mistaken sense of values is the task of the social reformer and the publicist, but the educationist must not be afraid to mend the system to the extent that he can. I suggest that we approach our task today in that spirit."

2. Agenda:-The Board was invited to consider the following agenda:-

1. Unemployment and Educational Reconstruction

2. Procedure

3. International Intellectual Cooperation :-

The formation of a National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation in India; and'

4. Relations of the Central Advisory Board of Education with the Inter-University Board, India.

3. Proceedings:-The Board considered the above agenda and made the following recommendations :-

(i) Unemployment and Educational Reconstruction

(1) While conscious of the great debt which is due to the education hitherto provided in India and of the part played by universities in promoting higher study

CENTRAL ADVISORY BOARD OF EDUCATION

and research and in training men and women for the service of India, the Board is of opinion that the following considerations, among others, necessitate a new attitude towards educational problems :-

(a) the increasing desire among educationists and others to bring about changes in the educational system in view of the altered conditions of life;

(b) the growing volume of unemployment among the educated classes;

(d) the inadvisability of too frequent examinations;

(e) the large number of 'over-age' pupils in the senior classes of high schools;

(f) the increasing number of. students in universities, who are unable to benefit by university instruction and, in consequence, the difficulty in making satisfactory provision for the better qualified students and for research;

(g) the need of developing training of a more practical type than at present and of making provision for such training, especially for those with little or no literary bent, and of adjusting it to the scheme of general education; and,

(h) the advisability of developing a suitable scheme of rural education, by which boys and girls in rural areas shall be given such training as would develop in them a capacity and desire for the work of rural reconstruction.

(2) The Board is of opinion that a radical readjustment of the present system for professional and university courses, but also to enable them, at the completion appropriate stages, to be diverted to occupations or to separate vocational institutions.

(3) These stages should be :-

(a) The primary stage, which should aim at providing at least a minimum of general education and training and will ensure permanent literacy.

(b) The lower secondary stage, which will provide a self-contained course of general education and will constitute a suitable foundation either for higher education or for specialised practical courses.

In rural areas, the courses at this stage should be attuned to rural requirements.

Some form of manual training at this stage should be provided, which would aim at the development of practical aptitudes and be made compulsory.

(i) preparing students for admission to universities in arts and science;

(ii) for the training of teachers in rural areas;

(iii) for agricultural training;

(iv) for clerical training; and

(v) for training in selected technical subjects which should be chosen in consultation with employers.

Where separate institutions are not possible for the diversified courses, some of them might be incorporated in a higher secondary course of enlarged scope which

PROCEEDINGS OF FIRST MEETING

would permit a choice of alternative groups of subjects and would end in leaving certificates.

(4) At the end of the lower secondary school course there should be the first public examination.

(5) Candidates desirous of joining the subordinate clerical services of government and of local bodies should pass such qualifying examinations as might be prescribed by proper authority and should, not be more than 19 years of age at the date of their examination.

The certificates granted to pupils completing other specialised courses should receive government recognition.

(6) Expert advice would be of value in organising the scheme of reconstruction outlined above; and also for suggesting methods of training masters who would assist pupils and parents in the selection, by the pupils, of courses of study with due regard to their aptitudes.

(7) Each province should organise Employment Bureaux for the purpose of advising students and of eliciting support and guidance of employers interested in the problem.

(8) Every local government should actively explore the possibility of finding new avenues of employment and occupation.

(ii) Procedure

(9) The Board accepts the suggestions contained in the explanatory memorandum on "Procedure" with the following modification under item (ii) (e) on page 2 of that memorandum that "the proceedings of the discussions of the Board will not ordinarily be forwarded to the local governments unless the Board specifically desires otherwise in any particular case."

(iii) Committees

(10) The following members shall form the nucleus of the Standing Committees on the subjects noted against each group :-

 
        
        1.   Lady Grigg
        2.   Rajkumari Amrit Kaur    }          Women's Education
        3.   Dr. A. H. Mackenzie
        4.   Hon'ble Khan Bahadur M. Aziz-ul-Haque
        
        1.   Hon'ble Mr. S. Abdul Aziz
        2.   Mr. Shyamaprasad Mookerjee   }      Secondary Education
        3.   Mr. H. F. Saunders
        4.   Mr. W. Grieve
        5.   Hon'ble Mr. B. G. Khaparde
        
        1.   Mr. J. E. Parkinson
        2.   Hon'ble Sir J. P. Srivastava
        3.   Rajkumari Amrit Kaur         }      Vernacular Education
        4.   Sir S. Radhakrishnan
        5.   The Bishop of Lahore

CENTRAL ADVISORY BOARD OF EDUCATION

                                          
        
        1.   Rt. Hon'ble Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru
        2.   Dr Zia-ud-Din Ahmad                         Vocational and Prof-
        3.   Hon'ble Sir J. P. Srivastava        }       ssional Education
        4.   Mr. Shyamaprasad Mookerjee
        5.   Sir K. Ramunni Menon

The Educational Commissioner with the Government of India shall be a member of all these committees.

The committees shall have power to co-opt members who would be likely to provide local experience and guidance.

(iv)Revival of the Bureau of Education in India

(11) The Bureau of Education should be revived under the control of the Educational Commissioner with the Government of India for dealing specifically with the collection and dissemination of literature relating to educational problems in the various provinces.

(v) International Intellectual Cooperation

(12) The two propositions-

(i) whether the existing arrangement whereby the Educational Commissioner with the Government of India acts as Correspondent with the Secretariat of the International Committee of the League and with the Director of the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation at Paris should continue or whether any steps should be taken for the formation of a proper National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation in India; and

(ii) whether the Inter-University Board, India, or the Central Advisory Board of Education should act as the National Centre of Educational Information for India;

should first be referred to the Inter-University Board, India.

(vi) Relations of the Central Advisory Board of Education with the Inter-University Board, India

(13) The Inter-University Board should function automatically and invariably as a consultative body for all purposes relating to university education. The Central Advisory Board of Education, however, will be free to express its independent opinion on any recommendation which the Inter-University Board may make on any question which may be referred to that body for opinion.

4. The proceedings ended with a vote of thanks to the Chairman and the Educational Commissioner with the Government of India. At the close of the meeting, the Chairman informed the members that, with their permission, a press communique would be issued embodying a brief substance of the proceedings of the Board and requested them to treat all the papers relating to the meeting, which had been circulated to them, as confidential.

18A

(ii) SECOND MEETING-DECEMBER,1936

Chairman's Address (Sir Jagdish Prasad)

"I WOULD have considered myself fortunate indeed if during my tenure of my present office, I could have established a convention that my duty here would be to recount however inadequately your noteworthy attainments, for thereby I might have succeeded in diverting your attention from the somewhat glaring contrast between the signal mediocrity of your ex-officio, Chairman and the rare distinction of the company which he is proud to welcome today. We have on this Board no less than three Members of the Privy Council-the Right Hon'ble Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru whom we are very glad to see here today, the parent of a famous report which has set us all a thinking, the Right Hon'ble Sir Akbar Hydari, who, I am sorry to say, is unable to attend owing to illness and the Right Honourable Srinivasa Sastri who is away in Malaya on an important mission. There are others who have won renown in other walks of life. To this distinguished band, I should like to welcome one no less distinguished, Mr. Jayakar, scholar and man of affairs. I should also like to extend a friendly greeting to Mr. Clow who has devoted his great abilities to industrial problems and to bettering the conditions of Indian labour in factories. I am sure that his penetrating and cultured mind will be of great benefit to us in considering our problems especially in linking up the system of education to industrial needs. I am also glad to see and welcome a businessman of the ability and sagacity of Lala Shri Ram. I also would like to welcome Mr. Roberts of Bird & Co., who is not here today. I am glad that the Inter-University Board has selected as its representative the distinguished Vice-Chancellor of the Bombay University, Mr. N. V. Chandavarkar in place of Sir Radha-krishnan who has attained the unique distinction of being appointed a Professor at Oxford. I need not particularise further.

"Ladies and gentlemen, since we last met, we have suffered grievous loss by the death of Dr. Mackenzie, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Osmania University. I had the privilege of working for a number of years with Dr. Mackenzie in the United Provinces and it is a matter of the deepest regret to me that we shall no longer have the advantage of his advice and assistance. India owes a deep debt of gratitude to the late Dr. Mackenzie for his signal services to the advancement of education in many fields. I am sure that the Board would like to record by a formal resolution their deep sense of loss at the death of a distinguished colleague.

"A Board composed of so many distinguished men and women cannot but make a valuable contribution to one of the most vexed problems of the day, namely, educational reform. No subject lends itself to such divergent views, in none is there more scope for challenging the motives that underlie policy. While many may be prepared to agree to the necessity of reform, concrete proposals are the signal for suspicion, alarm and indignation. It is somewhat curious how slow- footed is educational reform in India. We have had numerous commissions and committees of great weight and authority. They have after an exhaustive survey of the whole field made their reports,

PROCEEDINGS OF THE MEETINGS OF THE BOARD