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Eternal India
encyclopedia
EDUCATION
college. In 1854 Poona had an engineering school to provide
education for subordinate officers of the Public Works Department.
This institution became a college in 1856.
Medical education made a beginning in India with attempts to
teach in the native language. In 1822 a Native Medical Institution
was established in Calcutta which offered a three-year course
through the medium of Urdu. Dissection was practised on inferior
animals. In 1826 the Sanskrit College of Calcutta was running
medical classes using wax models for teaching anatomy. In 1833.
Lord William Bentinck appointed a committee to examine the state
of medical education which was then being imparted in Calcutta.
The committee recommended the establishment of an institution in
which "the various branches of medical science cultivated in Eu-
rope should be taught and as near as possible on the most approved
European system." A medical college teaching Western medical
science through English was established in 1835 with the aim of
producing sub-assistant surgeons for employment in military and
civil stations in India. Dr M.J. Bramley was appointed as the
Superintendent with Drs. H.H. Goodeve, Nathanial Wallich and
W.B. O'Shaughnessy on the teaching staff. It was Goodeve who in-
troduced human dissection for the first time in India.
One Madhusudan Gupta was the first Indian medical student to
dissect a human body in 1836 to the booming of guns at Fort
William to mark the occasion. "It had needed some time, some
exercise of the persuasive art before Madhusudan could bend up his
mind to the attempt. But once having taken the resolution, he never
flinched or swerved from it. At the appointed hour, scalpel in hand,
he followed Dr. Goodeve into the godown where the body lay
ready."
In March 1844 the first batch of five Indian students (Bhola
Nath Bose, Gopal Chandra Seal, Dwaraka Nath Bose, Surgi
Coomer and Chuckerbutty) were sent to England for medical
training under the guidance of Dr. Goodeve at University College,
London. The Medical College received recognition of the Royal
College of Surgeons and the University of London in 1846. In 1857
it was affiliated to the Calcutta University.
In Madras a medical school was established in 1843 even
though its establishment had been sanctioned as early as 1835. In
1851 the school was raised to the status of a college which in 1855
received recognition from the Royal College of Surgeons. The
medical college was subsequently affiliated to the Madras
University.
In the Presidency of Bombay Sir Robert Grant initiated steps
in 1837 for the establishment of an institution for medical educa-
tion. After his death in 1838 sanction was accorded to the establish-
ment of a medical institution which was established in 1845 as the
Grant Medical College to which was accredited the Sir Jamshedji
Jeejeebhoy Hospital as the "School of Practice." In 1854 it received
recognition from the Royal College of Surgeons and was affiliated
to the Bombay University in 1860.
Of all the professional colleges, law colleges were the most
popular. The Despatch of 1854 made special mention of law and
alluded to it as the most important of those branches with regard to
which facilities did not exist and for which professorships might be
instituted. Two systems evolved in different provinces for giving
instruction in law. In one, teaching was concentrated in a central
institution under government or university management ; in the
other, law classes were attached to local arts colleges. Madras,
Bombay and Punjab followed the former system and Bengal and
United Provinces the latter. In 1886-87 there were 97 law colleges
and schools with 1,673 students. In 1946-47 this number had in-
creased to 116 institutions with 9,098 students.
AFTER INDEPENDENCE
Independent India inherited a system of higher education pat-
terned after British universities. But unfortunately, neither Lon-
don, nor Oxford nor Cambridge model could be really replicated in
Indian conditions. They could borrow only outward structures, but
seldom the true spirit of the British system. Unlike universities in
Britain, Indian Universities were created by Acts passed by the
Central or Provincial Legislatures and supported by government
funds. Hence they were completely under official government
control. Governors were Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors and
the majority of members of the Senate and Syndicate were ex-
officio members or nominated or appointed by the government.
Academically, the system of higher education suffered from
many deficiencies like rigidity in structure and functioning, more
or less fixed curriculum not responsive to change, orthodox
hierarchy in staffing, examination centredness rather than human
development-oriented, lack of dynamism in decision makers to
raise standards and inability of universities to mobilise their
resources.
The national leaders were dissatisfied with the system since it
did not develop patriotism or pride in India's heritage; it also was
not linked closely with India's developmental needs. Mahatma
Gandhi criticised it as "an unmitigated evil." He, therefore,
suggested as far back as 1921-22, the establishment of National
schools and colleges like the Gujarat Vidyapeeth, Kashi
Vidyapeeth, Bihar Vidyapeeth, Tilak Vidyapeeth in Maharashtra,
National High School, Bangalore, Gandhigram Rural University
in Tamil Nadu. Similarly another alternative system of higher
education was experimented by Rabindranath Tagore in
Santiniketan, where a university called Vishwabharathi was
founded in 1921, in which a synthesis of Eastern and Western
cultures was attempted.
Annie Besant was another advocate of Indian National Educa-
tion which would uphold Indian values and ancient traditions. She
had pointed out the need for the setting up of a Hindu central
college at Benares, which later, with special efforts of Pandit
Madan Mohan Malaviya became the nucleus of the now well-
known Benares Hindu University. The Arya Samaj, the Christian
Missionaries and other social or religious organisations also
entered the field of higher education by establishing Arts, Science
and other colleges. The development was not only quantitatively
small and microscopic but also qualitatively anaemic and disfunc-
tional in terms of nation building and a self-reliant and growth-
oriented economy and an integrated nation with a progressive
national outlook.
Shortly after 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru said that the entire basis
of education should be reorganised. The University Education
Commission under Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1948-49), the Com-
mittee on Elementary Education (1950-52), ‘and the Secondary Ed-
ucation Commission (1952-53) were steps in this direction. But a
national policy on education could not be evolved until 1966 when
the Education Commission under D.C. Kothari produced a report