EDUCATION IN INDIA

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28155, 19 December 1956, Page 8

EDUCATION IN INDIA

DEMAND FAR GREATER THAN FACILITIES ASSISTANCE GIVEN BY CHURCH SCHOOLS

Since the independence of India, the Government had seen the great need for education and it recognised the good work done by the mission schools said Miss Gladys Riddle, who was principal of the Jagadhri Christian Middle School for Girls in’the Eastern Punjab. Miss Riddle is a retired schoolteacher arid was sent to India by the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. The school had a total roll of 380.

In the last five years, a great number of new schools for both boys and girls had been opened in India by the Government, said Miss Riddle yesterday. In the Punjab alone during this period 1000 new schools were opened. The demand for education had outstripped both the number of teachers and buildings available. Consequently teachers were being put in charge of schools, who had not much training, and many schools were being held in the open. Both training facilities for teachers and the building programme was being pushed ahead. Mission schools had made a great contribution towards learning in India, said Miss Riddle. In the Punjab these schools set the standard for education. The school of which she was in charge aimed at giving a good grounding in core subjects with a special emphasis on home science subjects such as cookery, laundry and needlework. “Every girl in India has a marriage arranged for her, and will therefore be a home-maker. That is why so much emphasis is placed on the home science subjects,” said Miss Riddle. Agricultural Projects

Much of the project work at the school centred around agriculture and cotton, wheat, lucerne, as well as other fodder crops, were grown in the schol garden. Miss Riddle said. Plots of potatoes and other vegetables known in the Punjab were also grown.

A nursery school, the first of its kind in the area, was set up at Miss Riddle’s school as an experiment and caused wide interest among those who were interested ip new methods of education.

As 85 per cent, of the adults were still illiterate, the missionary schools were assisting the Government in overcoming the problem, said Miss Riddle. Great progress had been made because of the methods introduced by Dr. Frank Laubach, of the United States, who had evolved a simplified system of teaching languages. It was gratifying to see how rapidly the people learned to read, said Miss Riddle.

The place of women in India was altering very rapidly and some of the leading posts in the Government were held by women, said Miss Riddle, who quoted Mrs Pandit, the present Indian Ambassador to Great Britain, and Dr. Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, the Minister of Health for the Central Government, who recently toured New Zealand, as examples.