History Of Indian Education

Indian education was well known and flourishing during the prosperous era of Nalanda, Takshila, Ujjain, & Vikramshila Universities. Art, Architecture, Painting, Logic, Grammar, Philosophy, Astronomy, Literature, Buddhism, Hinduism, Arthashastra (Economics & Politics), Law, Social science and Medicine were among the subjects taught and each university specialized in a particular field of study. Takshila specialized in the study of medicine, while Ujjain laid emphasis on astronomy. Nalanda, being the biggest centre, handled all branches of knowledge, and housed up to 10,000 students at its peak.

The whole world looked upon India as a hub for education. But with the separation of states, policies of rulers and kings and the British invasion there was dilution of the intense and value based Indian education.

Even till the British invasion indigenous education was widespread with a school for every temple, mosque or village in most regions of the country. The subjects taught included Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Theology, Law, Astronomy, Metaphysics, Ethics, Science, and Religion.

The face of education changed drastically with the adaptation of western education in India. The value system was taken off and the whole system was changed to a marks-based one. The subjects and the lessons taught became more standardized but the quality and penetration came down drastically.

Today s education is highly competitive and Indian children and made to mug up the facts and figures without showing the overall picture of what they are studying. Today any child will be able to give the exact definition of the term friction but will not be able to relate the brakes that he uses in his bicycle in day to day life to the term friction. Today s student will be able to give you a line by line recap of what happened with Gandhiji during the train travel in South Africa but there is no learning for him from that. He does not take home the lessons of leadership and intolerance to injustice but all he does is to remember the story to procure good marks in the exams!! This is the state because of the education system being very rigid and inflexible.