Education is seen as an important tool of Social and Economic progress, equalisation of opportunity and the building up of a democratic society. The challenge at independence was how to go for a better and wider educational process and institutions. Under the British rule education was seen as a means of creating a cadre for manning the lower bureaucratic positions.
The expenditure on mass education was minimum and a downward filteration theory was applied which presumed that a select group of people if educated would spread education downward to the mass of people.
The national movement leaders though educated in the colonial educational institutions tried to take the message of education to the masses. This of course was an education about the nature of colonialism and ill effects of the colonial rule. The colonial authorities could have no truck with it.
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Basic education and literary were the areas which were not tackled. Consequently in 1951 only 16.6% of the total population was literate, the rate being much lower (6.61%) in the rural areas. In 1947 there were only 18 universities with a total student enrolment of about 300000. In 1965 five per cent of the rural population was not served by any school of at all.
The facilities provided in existing schools were very poor, with majority of schools having no pucca building, blackboards or drinking water. Nearly 40% of primary schools had only one teacher to take three or four classes.
Moreover, there was a high rate of dropout. Nearly half of those enrolled in class I would have left school by the time they reached class IV and been rapidly reduced to illiteracy again. Starkly the dropout rate was higher in the case of girls than boys.
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Thus there was no equal opportunity in education and hardly an equalisation of opportunity in work and employment for the poor. Another major weakness was the decline in educational standards. Despite recognition of the problem, except for the technology sector the educational system was left untouched and unreformed and the quality of education continued to deteriorate, first in schools and then in colleges and universities.
The ideological content of education also continued to be the same as in the colonial period. That this challenge of education has persisted is borne out by a recent report by Amartya Sen. He points out “there is one field in which India clearly has done worse than even the average of poorest countries in the world and that is elementary education.
The rate of adult literacy in India has reached only about 50 % winch is low compared to China’s 78% but even compared to average figure of 55% for all low income economies India has been left behind in the field of basic education even by countries which have not done better than India in many other developmental achievements such as Ghana, Indonesia, Zimbabwe and Zambia”.
Despite this dismal picture in elementary education, the scene in higher education and in development of Science and Technology showed some improvement. A network of 17 national laboratories was set up which specialised in different fields of research.
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Urgent measures were taken to organise the training of technical personnel needed by the country. Consequently expenditure on scientific research and science based activities rose from Rs. 1.10 cores in 1948-49 to Rs. 85.06 crores in 1965-66 and the number of scientific personnel went up from 1, 88,000 in 1950 to 7, 31,000 in 1965.