Abstract
Attempts to make free and compulsory education accessible to Indian children began a little more than a century ago. A strong consciousness for the need of free and compulsory Primary Education in India was highly moved by enactment of the Compulsory Education Act in 1870 in England. Education has been formally recognized as a human right since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948. This has since then been reaffirmed in numerous global human rights treaties. Ultimately, universalization of elementary education has been one of the most important goals of educational development in India since independence. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE Act), 2009, came into force from April 1, 2010, pursuant to the Eighty-Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of India (2002), which guarantees elementary education as a fundamental right. This article attempts to delve into the checkered history of development of the free and compulsory primary education in India under the British Raj. The history of compulsory and free primary education during the British Rule in India is an uphill journey replete with suggestions, advocacies, demands, experimentations, attempts, promises, and movements within legislative framework. The British rulers adopted a good number of policies on education, but these were framed in tune with the needs of the colonial power. Consequently, compulsory and free primary education remained an unfulfilled dream during the British Raj, in spite of the stirring efforts of the Indians.
Highlights
The East India Company1 received an English Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I on the December 31, 1600
In 1757, when the East India Company embarked on its political career in India, there was no education system organized and supported by the state (Basu, 1982)
It only came in 1813 when Parliament included in the Charter a clause that made it “not obligatory but lawful” for the Governor-General in Council to set apart for education a sum of not less than 1 lakh of rupees
Summary
The East India Company received an English Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I on the December 31, 1600. The English East India Company established their rule in India This Company came to India as traders, they shifted their vision from economics to administrative control of India with the rise of Robert Clive and his victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 (Riddick, 2006). Later, they had become rulers and administrators and policy makers in the landscape of economy, polity, and education in India. There is no country where the love of learning had so early an origin or has exercised so lasting and powerful an influence (Thomas, 1891). Let us see how the checkered history of the free and compulsory primary education in India under the British Raj was
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