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Development of Education System

Notes British Rule for enforcing compulsory primary education was undertaken by William Adam in
1838.
In 1852, Captain Wingate, the Revenue Survey Commissioner in Bombay proposed to impart
compulsory education to the children of agriculturists after realizing a less of 5 per cent for it.
Later on a similar proposal was also followed in Gujarat.
A strong consciousness for the need of compulsory Primary Education in India was effected by
enactment of the compulsory Education act in 1870 in England. A number of Indian leaders
began to stress the need for primary education. In 1906 a Committee was appointed in Bombay
Province and it arrived at a conclusion that Compulsory Education was not proper and people
were not prepared for it.
With the advent of complete independence in 1947, the advocate of Universal Primary Education
had to speak to their Indian administrators and officers. The education of the school going
children of the country now became the responsibility of the people.
In 1950 the provision of Universal Primary Education was incorporated in the Article 45 of the
Constitution of India. "The state shall Endeavour to provide within a period of 10 years from
the commencement of the Constitution free and compulsory education for all children until
they complete the age of 14 years".
The provision of Universalization of Primary Education was scheduled to be achieved by 1960.
But a view of the immense difficulties such as lack of adequate resources, tremendous increases
in population, resistance to the education of girls, large number of children of the backward
classes in very low literacy region s, general poverty of the people, apathy of illiterate Parents
etc. it was not possible to make adequate progress and as such, the constitutional Directive has
remained unfulfilled.
And so, the universalization of primary education remains a national problem. The problems
from the surface over a period of more than 3 decades and with planned schemes under six Five
Year Plans looks modest but it really posses to be formidable.
An insistent demand was made that Government should fix an early deadline for its fulfillment
and should prepare a concrete programme of action for the purpose. Government decided to
achieve the goal of universalization of all children on a time-bound programme as recommended
by the Conference of State Education Ministers in 1977.
15.1.2 Position of Elementary Education in India

Significant efforts have been made in the last fifty years to universalize elementary education.
Since 1950, impressive progress has been made in every sphere of elementary education. In
1950-51, there were about 210 thousand primary and 14 thousand upper primary schools. Their
numbers are now increased to 627 thousand and 190 thousand; thus showing an average annual
growth of 2.30 and 5.58 per cent per annum. As many as 83 per cent of the total 1,061 thousand
habitations have access to primary schooling facilities within 1 km and 76 per cent habitations
to upper primary schooling facilities within a distance of 3 km. About 94 and 85 per cent of the
total rural population is accessed to primary and upper primary schools/sections. The ratio of
primary to upper primary schools over time has improved which is at present 3.3. More than 84
per cent of the total 570 thousand primary schools had school buildings. The number of single-
teacher primary schools has also considerably declined.
The number of teachers both at the primary and upper primary levels of education over time
has increased many folds. From a low of 538 thousand in 1950-51, the number of primary
school teachers increased to 1,904 thousand. Similarly, upper primary teachers during the same
period increased from 86 thousand to 1,278 thousand. The pupil-teacher ratio is at present 42:
1 at the primary and 37:1 at the upper primary level of education. Despite the significant
improvement in number of teachers, the percentage of female teachers is still low at 35 and 36
per cent respectively at the primary and upper primary level of education. However, the majority
of teachers, both at the primary (87 per cent) and upper primary (88 per cent) levels, are trained.

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