Not only the British but even Indian people began talking about the need for a wider spread of education. There were differences here too. Some Indians felt that Western education would help modernize India. They urged the British to open more schools, colleges and universities, and spend more money on education. There were other Indians, however, who reacted against Western education. Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore were two such individuals.

Gandhi on Education

Gandhi’s Critique of Colonial Education: He argued that colonial education created a sense of inferiority in the minds of indians. 

• Impact on Indian Self-Perception:It was sinful as it enslaved the minds of Indians and destroyed the pride they had in their own culture.
• Purpose of Education:Indians educated in western styled education looked down upon indian values and admired the british rule.
• Self-Respect and Dignity: According to Gandhi, education was meant to instill self respect and dignity in an individual and not create inferiority complex. 
• Call for Boycott: During the national movement, he urged students to leave educational institutions in order to show to the British that Indians were no longer willing to be enslaved.

• Advocacy for Indian Languages in Education: Mahatma Gandhi strongly felt that Indian languages ought to be the medium of teaching. 
  • English had crippled Indians and made them “strangers in their own lands”. 
• Cultural Alienation: Speaking a foreign tongue, despising local culture, the English educated did not know how to relate to the masses.
•  Literacy and Education: According to him there was a difference in being educated and being literate. 
  • English education made people literate, as it solely focussed on reading and writing. 
• Goal of Education: The goal of education was to develop a person’s mind and soul. 

Tagore on Education  

Schooling Experience: As a child, Tagore hated going to school. His mind often wandered away. He found it suffocating and oppressive. The school appeared like a prison. 

• Free and Creative School: He wanted to set up a school where the child was happy, where she could be free and creative, where there was time for self-learning, outside the rigid and restricting discipline of the schooling system set up by the British.
• Critique of British Schooling System: According to Tagore, the existing schools killed the natural desire of the child to be creative, her sense of wonder. 
  • Teachers had to be imaginative, understand the child, and help the child develop her curiosity.
• Importance of Natural Learning Environment: Tagore believed that learning could only be encouraged within a natural environment. So he set up his school 100 kilometers away from Calcutta, in a rural setting. 
  • Establishment of Santiniketan: It was named ‘Santiniketan’, meaning the abode of peace, where living in harmony with nature, children could cultivate their natural creativity.

• Gandhi and Tagore’s Educational Views: Though both Gandhi and Tagore opposed Western education in India, there were certain differences between their styles of education too. 
  • Gandhiji was highly critical of Western civilisation and its worship of machines and technology. 
  • Tagore’s Approach: But Tagore wanted to combine elements of modern Western civilisation with the best within Indian tradition. 
  • Holistic Education: Tagore emphasized the need to teach science and technology at Santiniketan, along with art, music and dance.

Education as a Civilising Mission 

Lack of Widespread Education: Until the introduction of the Education Act in 1870, there was no widespread education for the population as a whole for most of the nineteenth century. 

• Child Labour and Family Survival: Child labour being widely prevalent, poor children could not be sent to school for their earning was critical for the survival of the family. 
• Limited Number of Schools: The number of schools was also limited to those run by the Church or set up by wealthy individuals. 
• Introduction of the Education Act in 1870: It was only after the coming into force of the Education Act that schools were opened by the government and compulsory schooling was introduced. 
• Influence of Thomas Arnold on Education: One of the most important educational thinkers of the period was Thomas Arnold, who became the headmaster of the private school Rugby. 
• Emphasis on Classical Education: Favouring a secondary school curriculum which had a detailed study of the Greek and Roman classics, written 2,000 years earlier, he said: It has always seemed to me one of the great advantages of the course of study generally pursued in our English schools that it draws our minds so continually to dwell upon the past. Every day we are engaged in studying the languages, the history, and the thoughts of men who lived nearly or more than two thousand years ago… 
• Discipline and Civilizing Role of Education: Arnold felt that a study of the classics disciplined the mind. In fact, most educators of the time believed that such a discipline was necessary because young people were naturally savage and needed to be controlled. 
• Education in Guiding Proper Behavior: To become civilised adults, they needed to understand society’s notions of right and wrong, proper and improper behaviour. Education, especially one which disciplined their minds, was meant to guide them on this path.

Conclusion

Diverse Thought: Before Independence, there were different schools of thought within and outside the nationalists regarding the system and language of education in India.

• Continuing Influence: The “National” in national education, even today, remains a topic of heated discussion. 
  • But it cannot be denied that the British have left an educational legacy which still continues at school and university levels. 

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