12.1.2 Post-independence commissions and committees

Explained

1. University Education Commission (1948-49). Appointed in November 1948, reported in August 1949; members included Zakir Husain, A. Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar and Meghnad Saha. It was set up because universities had grown fast and unevenly before independence. Main points:

• Aims: universities should train leaders in politics, administration, professions and industry, and spread wisdom and values (it backed moral and religious education of a non-sectarian kind, with a few minutes of silent meditation a day).
• Structure: 12 years of school and intermediate study before university, a three-year degree, research degrees after it.
• UGC to fund and coordinate universities.
• Rural universities, built on the ideas of basic education, for village India.
• Language: the regional language for higher education as early as possible; students to learn the regional language, the federal language (Hindi) and English: the seed of the three-language idea.
• Teachers: better salaries, security and service conditions.
• Examinations: use objective tests, give marks for class work.
• Women's education: expand it; equal pay for women teachers.

2. Secondary Education Commission (1952-53). Appointed 23 September 1952, report 1953; chairman Dr A. Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar, Vice-Chancellor of Madras University. Secondary education was then "a one-track preparation for college". The commission:

• set the four aims (democratic citizenship, vocational efficiency, personality, leadership);
• proposed 4 or 5 years primary/junior basic + 3 years middle/senior basic + 4 years higher secondary;
• introduced multipurpose schools: a common core (languages, social studies, general science, mathematics, a craft) plus one diversified group: humanities, sciences, technical, commercial, agriculture, fine arts, home science. Separate vocational courses beside the core are an example of a diversified curriculum (2025 key);
• asked for the mother tongue or regional language as the medium, guidance and counselling in every school, internal assessment, cumulative records and symbolic (graded) marking, and a textbook committee;
• wanted better teacher training and libraries.

3. Education Commission (1964-66). Chairman Dr Daulat Singh Kothari (then UGC chairman); member-secretary J.P. Naik; its members included experts from abroad, and it looked at all stages of education. Its report, *Education and National Development, was the basis of the NPE 1968*.

It saw education as the main instrument of social change and national development.

• What made it different (BRAOU B.Ed. text): the first commission to review the whole system instead of one stage; it had foreign experts as members; it treated education as the most powerful tool of national development. Medical and legal education were left out except where they touched the rest.
• Its three tasks: re-examine the role of education in national development; find the changes needed; carry out the programme with vigour.
• National objectives in the BRAOU list (four): raise productivity; social and national integration; modernisation; social, moral and spiritual values. Standard texts add consolidation of democracy as a fifth.
• Equalisation: education as the lever to give the poor and backward an equal chance (2025 key: Kothari).
• Children with disabilities: the first commission to argue for their education on grounds of utility (they can contribute), not only humanitarian grounds; special schools plus integrated education; at least one good institution per district.
• Examination reform runs through every commission: Radhakrishnan (objective tests), Hartog, Mudaliar (internal assessment, symbolic marks) and Kothari (internal assessment, grades) all asked for it.

4. Ramamurti Committee (1990). The V.P. Singh government set up the Committee for Review of NPE 1986 on 7 May 1990 under Acharya Ramamurti (a Gandhian educationist). Report: *Towards an Enlightened and Humane Society* (December 1990). It stressed equity and social justice, a common school system, work-centred education, decentralisation, women's education, and questioned "pace-setting" schools such as Navodaya as elitist. A CABE committee under N. Janardhana Reddy (1991-92) then reviewed the Ramamurti report; its advice led to the revised NPE and POA of 1992.

5. Yashpal Committee (1992-93). A National Advisory Committee chaired by Prof. Yash Pal (a space scientist) looked at the burden on schoolchildren; report *Learning without Burden* (July 1993). Its points:

• the heaviest burden is learning without understanding, not just bag weight;
• textbooks should be prepared with teachers and decentralised; children need not carry all books daily;
• no homework at the primary stage, and no tests or interviews for nursery admission;
• a pupil-teacher ratio of about 1:30;
• use of TV and media for learning; teachers involved in curriculum.

6. National Knowledge Commission (2005-09). Set up by the Manmohan Singh government on 13 June 2005 as a high-level advisory body to the Prime Minister, chaired by Sam Pitroda; members included Nandan Nilekani, Deepak Nayyar, Jayati Ghosh and P. Balaram. It aimed to make India a knowledge society and gave about 300 recommendations on 27 focus areas in its Report to the Nation. Key ideas:

• access: a central law on the right to education, a National Translation Mission, a commission on libraries, teaching of English from Class 1;
• higher education: an Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education (IRAHE), about 1,500 universities and a gross enrolment ratio of at least 15% by 2015, 50 national universities;
• National Knowledge Network linking universities and research labs by high-speed broadband;
• vocational education, open educational resources, e-governance.

7. Other committees often asked.

8. Every commission in one chronology (colonial ones in EDU-PO-01).