It is quite difficult to grasp the entire concepts and ideas of Adult Education in India which has long history of around ten thousand years or more. Let us have a quick look at Adult Education in India since its existence ten thousand years ago.
If we go 80 km south from Bhopal city of Madhya Pradesh, we will reach Bhimbetka Cave. The Bhimbetka site has the oldest-known rock mural art in India. It is one of the largest prehistoric complexes. Bhimbetka rock art is considered among the oldest petroglyphs in the world, some of these being similar to aboriginal rock art in Australia and the Paleolithic Lascaux cave paintings in France, the megalithic engravings and paintings in Tarxien, Malta, and the Paola Hypogeum on the same Mediterranean island. There are around 15 rock shelters and rock paintings depicting the life of early humans. These paintings, as old as 30,000 years, showcase the evolution of human understanding of shapes and forms. It also highlighted their capability to express these ideas through painting.
Later, we come across the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), also known as the Harappan civilization. It was a Bronze Age civilization in the northwestern regions of South Asia during 3300 BCE to 1900 BCE. It developed the first accurate system of standardized weights and measures, accurate up to 1.6 mm. Harappans created sculpture, seals, pottery, and jewelry from materials, such as terracotta, metal, and stone.
In ancient India, during the Vedic period from about 1500 BC to 600 BC, most education was based on the Vedas (hymns, formulas, and incantations, recited or chanted by priests of a pre-Hindu tradition) and later Hindu texts and scriptures. Vedic education included: proper pronunciation and recitation of the Vedas, the rules of sacrifice, grammar, derivation and composition, measuring devices, understanding of secrets of nature, reasoning including logic, the sciences and the skills necessary for an occupation.
Thereafter we had the concept of Gurukul in which students used to stay in the house of a Brahmin Teacher (called Guru). At the Gurukuls, the teacher imparted knowledge of Religion, Scriptures, Philosophy, Literature, Warfare, Statecraft, Medicine, Astrology and History. The corpus of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as technical scientific, philosophical and generally Hindu religious texts, though many central texts of Buddhism and Jainism have also been composed in Sanskrit. Two epic poems formed part of ancient Indian education. The Mahabharata, part of which may date back to the 8th century BC, discusses human goals (purpose,
The western form of education started its journey from 324 BCE when Alexander invaded India. Historians who came with Alexander wrote about the then social, political, economic structure of the society. Megasthenes was the first person from the Western world to leave a written description of India in his book Indica. Later, the country India had gone through different transitions under different rulers which culminated in British rule from 1757 to 1947. In these periods, the small countries were separated from India: Afghanistan in 1876; Nepal in 1904; Bhutan in 1906; Tibet in 1907; Sri Lanka in 1935; Myanmar (Burma) in 1937; and Pakistan in 1947.
In the post independence scenario, Adult Education was taken up in earnest. Different programmes and schemes introduced by the Union Government and the provincial Governments started to drive Adult Education towards sustainable goals. Many social leaders like Raja Rammohan Roy, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave and Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, and many more played a vital role in the expansion and growth of Adult Education in pre and post independent India.
In this book, an attempt has been made to systematically view Indian adult education and present it to our readers.
This book, Adult Education in India, contains eleven chapters. The first chapter ‘Historical Perspectives of Adult Education in India’ is written by Prasenjit Deb and Srabani Maitra. They attempt to present an overview of Indian adult education with the emphasis on pre-independent India. In the succeeding chapter, S. Y. Shah elaborated in detail the different five year plans for Indian adult Education. Financial allocations in different five year plans along with the initiation of programmes are addressed. In the third chapter, V. Mohankumar, the former Director of Indian Adult Education Association depicted the recent Saakshar Bharat programme where he mainly discussed post-colonial adult education in India. The fourth chapter, ‘Perspectives of Popular Education’ is written by Asoke Bhattacharya in which comparative adult education, involving India, Brazil, and Denmark, is discussed. The focus here is on the works of Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi, who worked in India, and Paulo Freire who worked in Brazil. This chapter also highlights the educational concepts of Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig of Denmark, the pioneer of adult education in the Nordic world. The next chapter ‘Adult learning in Adivasi, Dalit and Marginal Peasant Social Movements in India’ is the