Girls’ education in Colonial India: a critique on the trajectory of Savitribai Phule in the twenty-first century India

Abstract

ABSTRACT Savitribai Phule, the first female school teacher in India, with the support of her husband and mentor, Jyotirao Phule pioneered a pivotal role in educating Indian girls in the nineteen-century Colonial India. Her philosophical underpinnings and activism for the education of the girls and the oppressed classes in India are still relevant and inspiring even today. This article primarily intends to reassess the trajectory of her philosophy, policy reforms and pedagogical practices towards girls’ education in the nineteen-century Colonial India even when the demand for compulsory primary education was not raised in India, in the light of twenty-first century India. Before delving into the whole spectrum of her trajectory, it retraces the British Colonial policies pertaining to the provision of girls’ compulsory schooling in Colonial India against which the missionaries, British philanthropic and Savitribai together with other Indian reformers made a series of efforts towards girls’ education in Colonial India.