Gandhiji’s
unique contribution to Indian Education
Undeti Ananda Kumar M.A., M.Phil.,
(M.Ed)
School Assistant Social Sciences,
ZPSS-Sujathanagar, Khammam District, AP
Counsellor in History, Dr.BR. Ambedkar
Open University AP.
State Resource person, Rastriya
Madhyamika Siksha Abhiyan, Andhra Pradesh
Text Books Writer, State Council of
Educational Research and Training, Andhra Pradesh
Master Trainer, EESAP, Center for
Environmental Education, AP
*****
Mahatma Gandhi, the
father of the nation and an apostle of ahimsa and peace, was also a great
educational thinker and practitioner. He believed that educational
reconstruction was necessary for social and national reconstruction and
proposed a national scheme of education which came to be known as basic education.
The constant
experimenter with Truth, Gandhi started his experimentation in the field of
education in 1904 in South Africa by starting the phoenix settlement. In the
settlement (school) children were taught literacy, agriculture and painting. It
was an ideal school-workshop where both theory and practice were integrated.
The experiment at phoenix resulted in Gandhi’s belief in hand-power over
machine-power, hence in self-reliance. Self reliance later became the corner
stone of Gandhi’s Basic Education scheme in 1937. With this initial success in
‘true education’, Gandhi started Tolstoy Farm in 1911 in Transvaal. It was an
ashram-like farm where vocations such as cooking, digging and message work were
taught. Manual work and non-violence were put into practice.
After returning from
South Africa Gandhi started the Sabarmati ashram in 1916. It was a village
complete in itself where the residents prayed, worked and ate together. The
school inmates observed vows like truth speaking and wearing khadi.
In April, 1935, Gandhi
founded the Sevagram ashram at Wardha in Maharastra. It was here that all the
educational ideas and experiences of Gandhi found their articulation in the
national system of education. The new scheme of education was endorsed by the
leading educationists of the country and a concrete shape was given to the
programme. Gandhi’s scheme of National
education with its emphasis on craft as the axis of education came to be known
as Basic Education, Bunyadi Shiksha and Nai Talim. Gandhi, rather
uncharacteristically claimed that basic education was the best of his
contribution to the country for ‘it is conceived as the spearhead of a silent
social revolution fraught with the most far-reaching consequences’.
Gandhi’s educational philosophy
·
equated education with
literacy training.
·
implemented a curriculum
that was totally dissociated from the socio-cultural milieu of the country
·
intended to develop
materialist civilization.
·
aimed at cultural
conquest and individual alienation.
·
aimed at political
enslavement and economic dependency; and
·
negated the crucial
values of India, Truth and Non-violence.
Aims of education
·
Self-sufficiency aim:
The aim of education should be to make the individual economically independent
and self-sufficient. For this purpose Gandhi made his basic education ‘Craft’
Centered’. He described craft centered basic education as an ‘insurance against
unemployment’.
·
Cultural aim: Gandhi
opposed British education because of its materialistic culture which alienated
Indian culture children from their indigenous culture. He advocated the
preservation and transmission of Indian culture as an important aim of
education.
·
Character building aim:
Gandhi said that all education must aim at character building, ‘knowledge is
the means and character building is the aim’. The aim of education is not to
fill the mind of the child with knowledge; it is to build its character. The
ultimate purpose of education is to raise man to a higher moral and spiritual
order through full development of his personality.
Content
and processes of basic education
·
Compulsory
free primary education: By ‘free’ education Gandhi did not imply education
wholly supported and provided free by state or any charity. Such education,
Gandhi thought, does incalculable harm and negates the freedom of the child. To
be truly free, one must rely on oneself individually and collectively to
support oneself by way of work which is both an instrument and a source of
learning. Free education so conceived liberates the learner from existential
dependence by making him a productive learner.
·
Education
for self-sufficiency: To make education really free Gandhi wanted to make
individual learner and institution self-supportive. Gandhi drew this idea of
self- sufficiency from self-sufficient village economy. Self –sufficiency is
not a ‘prior’ condition, said Gandhi, ‘but to me, it is the acid test…. Without
this nai talim would be like a lifeless body’. To infuse life into the body the
logical necessity of this characteristic was to adopt craft-centered education.
·
Craft-centered
education: By way of making education self-supportive Gandhi proposed education
through the medium of rural handicraft. Gandhi says, ‘I would begin the child’s
education by teaching it a useful handicraft and enabling it to produce from
the moment it begins its training’. Craft is not considered merely as a
compulsory school subject; rather it forms the ‘axis’of the entire
teaching-learning process. The introduction of craft in education is intended
to teach through concrete life situations in order that what is taught is
assimilated into life. Craft is both a means and an end of education. Education
acquired through craft is educative in its academic and social sense; it is
remunerative-it makes the learner self-supportive during and after schooling
and it is ‘liberative’ in its existential and essential dimensions.
·
Vernacular
as medium of education: Gandhi very strongly believed that it is the foreign
language that is responsible for the cultural conquest and the alienation of
the students. He vehemently opposed instruction in foreign medium, for it ‘put
an undue strain upon the nerves of our children, made them creamers and
imitators, unfitted them for original work and thought… it made our children
practically foreigners in their own land’. Therefore he advocated that the
schooling be in mother tongue.
·
Non-violence:
The principle of non-violence (ahimsa) was the basis of Gandhi’s scheme of
Basic Education. Basic Education aimed at non-violent social transformation. It
intended to transform the society by moral transformation of the individual.
Individual moral transformation is initiated by making individual a
self-reliant, self-governing individual who follows the self-chosen dharma.
UNDETI
ANANDA KUMAR
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Source:
IGNOU, Delhi-Books on Gandhi’s Philosophy
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