EDUCATION IN INDIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 288, 5 December 1929, Page 10

EDUCATION IN INDIA.

IGNORANT WOMANHOOD. MILLIONS UNPROVIDED FOR. APATHY OF THE MASSES. The middle and higher classes of India have long suffered from the dualism of an educated manhood and an ignorant womanhood—a. dualism that lowers the whole level of the home and domestic life, and has its reaction on personal and national character.

I This is one of the principal conclusions reached by the Auxiliary Committee, presided over by Sir Philip Hartog, appointed by the Simon Commission to present a review of the growth of education in British India. On this subject the committee's report, issued recently, adds: "Despite the growing , increase in girls' education, the measures taken to promote it have been inadequate. The education of the gin is the education of the mother. The school education of each additional girl counts more towards the future than the school education of an additional boy. We are definitely of opinion that, in the interests of the advance of Indian education as a whole, priority should now be given to the claims of girls' education in every scheme of expansion."

The committee was charged with reporting on the growth and organisation in British India in relation to political and constitutional conditions and potentalities of progress. The ..population of school-going age in British India is estimated at 34,000,000. At present there are approximately 7,460,000 boys and 1,082,000 girls reading at the primary stage. There are thus 10,302,000 boys and 15,136,000 girls for whom provision must be made. Summarising its conclusions, the committee says that the largely increased enrolment in primary schools indicates that the old-time apathy of the masses ie breaking down. There has been a social and political awakening of the women of India, and an expressed demand on their behalf for education and social reform. There has been a rap:d -ncrease in the numbers of Mohammedans receiving instruction. Efforts have been made- to improve the condition of the depressed classes, and those classes are beginning to respond to that effort and to assert their right to education. I

There is, however, the report remarks, another side of the picture. "Throughout the whole educational system there is waste and ineffestivenees. In the primary system, which from our point of view should be designed to produce literacy and the capacity to exercise an intelligent vote, the waste is appalling. So far as we can judge, the va9t increase in numbers in primary schools produces no commensurate increase in literacy, for only a small proportion of those who are at the prka&rj-' stage reach class IV., in which the, attainment of literacy may be expected.

"With the lack of suitable vernacular literature, a child has very little chanci of attaining literacy after l eftv j n * school. Indeed, even for the literate there are many chances of relapse into illiteracy, The wastage in the ease of girle is even more serious than-in the case of boys." The committee considers that the divorce of the Government of India from education has been unfortunate It i« suggested that the Central Government should serve as a centre of educational information for the whole of India, _ The problem of effective school prori. sion, the committee found, is complicated by the barriers of caste, by religious, communal, and linguistic difficulties. "The existence," says tne report, "of millions of persons who are retarded bv the majority of the population as ml touchable, and who in some places can. not even use all the public roads and wells, creates an educational problem which it would be difficult to parallel elsewhere. In Madras, for example large numbers of schools are situated in areas which the ■ Hindu social system does not permit a depressed class punil to enter." r ' A further handic.p on mass leffislation is the fact that only 44 per cent of the total number of .jachc u in primary schools are trained. There is grave danger lest the continuance- of almost valuless schooling will convert the parents into act.ve opponents of educa. tion.