NAYEE TALIM

Historical Background
Mahatma Gandhi visualised a need for Nai Talim (New Education also known as Basic
Education) for a new social order 10 years before independence in 1937. For Gandhiji, the goals
of education and society were not separate, nor could they be separated.

His basic views were:

 Use the real world as your classroom and learn through life.
 This real world was the closest environment in which children are growing.
 This real world is the world of adults, their relationships and occupations.
 He visualised a just world order directed towards the cooperative, self-reliant
neighbourhood societies - self-reliant in most basic needs.
 He experienced an urgent need to integrate the physical labour and intellectual work for a
new social order. Gandhiji pinpointed the advantages of such a learning model.
 Learning by doing is the best method of learning ever known. (It is important to note that
most modern neuroscience research supports this contention now).
 Learning inputs are spread over the entire surrounding environment and the society which
can easily be harnessed.
 To students, this should be "learning through earning" at later stage, as students have to
get into earning through the acquired learning. This parameter was added mainly to
ensure the quality, skills and intellectual abilities of learning.

For the purpose of discussing different aspects of the proposed new scheme of education, an All
India Education Conference was held in Wardha on 22nd and 23rd October, 1937. The eminent
educationists, congress leaders and workers alongwith the Education Ministers of the seven
states had attended the conference. Gandhiji himself presided over it. After serious discussions
the following four resolutions were passed.
 That in the opinion of this conference, free and compulsory education be provided on a
nation-wide scale.
 That the medium of instruction be the mother tongue.
 That the process of education through this period should centre round some form of manual
productive work suitable for the local condition.
 That the conference expects that the system of education will be gradually able to cover the
remuneration of the teacher.

The conference then appointed a committee under the Chairmanship of Dr. Zakir Hussain to
prepare a detailed education plan and syllabus on the lines of the above resolutions.
Besides Dr. Zakir Hussain, the Committee consisted of nine members. Among those who served
in the committee, Prof. K. G. Saigidain’s name is prominent. Other members included were Arya
Nayakam, Vinova Bhave, Kaka Kalelkar, J. C. Kumarappa, Kishori Lal, Prof. K. T. Shah etc.

As mentioned before the committee was appointed to prepare a detailed education plan and
syllabus. It submitted its reports, one in December, 1937 and the other in April, 1938. This report
has since become the fundamental document of the basic scheme and the scheme has come to be
known as the Wardha Scheme of Education. It was approved by Mahatma Gandhi and was
placed before the Indian National Congress at its Haripura session held in March,1938.

The first report included the basic principles of the Wardha Scheme of education, its aims,
teachers and their training, organisation of schools, administration, inspection and inclusion of
craft centred education regarding handicrafts like spinning, weaving etc. The second report dealt
with Agriculture, Metal work, Wood craft and other basic handicraft. An elaborate curriculum of
all those subjects and ways and means to establish their correlation with other subjects was also
suggested.

In course of time more conferences were held, more committees were formed on this important
subject. As a result more new features were added to this aspect of education which later on took
the final shape. The conference of 1945 at Sevagram characterized Basic Education as
“education for life”. The conference considered it as a radical and important revolution in social
and economic structure of the Indian society, i.e., creating a new way of life.” Since then Basic
education came to be known as ‘Nai Talim’. A conference of education ministers and
educational workers was called by B.G. Kher in 1946 that took some important resolutions
which affected the quality of Basic Education in different provinces. Basic Education has finally
emerged after a decade of experimentation and discussion. The scheme of basic education
formulates the following proposals—

 Free, universal and compulsory education should be provided for all boys and girls
between the ages of 7—14.
 This education should be imparted in the mother-tongue of the child.
 All education should centre round some basic craft chosen with due regard to the capacity
of children and the needs of the locality. The committee suggested spinning and weaving,
card-board and wood work, leather work, kitchen-gardening, agriculture and fishery as
obviously suitable crafts.
 The selected craft should be both taught and practised so that the children are able to
produce articles which can be used and may be sold to meet part of the expenditure on
the school.
 This craft must not be taught mechanically but its social and scientific implications were
to be studied side by side.
 In this craft-centered education all the subjects to be taught were to be integrally related
to the selected craft or the child’s physical and social environment.
The various subjects as suggested are given below—

1. Basic Craft.
(i) Spinning and Weaving,
(ii) Carpentry,
(iii) Agriculture,
(iv) Fruit and Flower Cultivation,
(v) Leather work,
(vi) Culturing Fish,
(vii) Pottery,
(viii) Any handicraft according to the local need,
(iv) Home Science for girls.

2. Mother tongue.
3. Mathematics.
4. Geography, History and Civics to be combined as Social Studies.
5. Painting and Music.
6. P.T., Drill and Sports etc.
7. General Science comprising Physics Chemistry, Botany, Zoology ,Hygiene and Nature
Study etc.
8. Hindi for that area in which it is not the mother tongue.

The above curriculum has the following characteristics—

i) English has not been included as a subject of study.
ii) Although the medium of instruction is mother tongue, all students must learn Hindi
language.
iii) There is no place for religious and moral education in the curriculum.
iv)The craft chosen must not be taught mechanically, but systematically and
scientifically keeping in view the social significance.

MERITS OF THE SYSTEM

 The scheme is financially sound and acceptable in a poor country like India, where
about half of the total illiterate people of the world reside. It is helpful for rapid
expansion of elementary education with less burden on public exchequer.

 It is also economically productive as it is based on the principle of work. Work

occupies the central place in basic education. The system is production oriented and
helps in the programme of national economic reconstruction.

 The system was able to remove class and caste distinction. It helps to bring social
solidarity and national integration.
 It removes the barriers between the educated and the non-educated, between manual
work and intellectual work, between the rich and the poor and village and the town.

 Basic education is activity-centred education. The child is not a passive learner but an
active participant in the learning process. It fosters learning by doing. Thus,
instruction is not passive, and the child learns through a productive and useful craft.

 Basic education is child-centric. The child is the centre of activity. It primarily

considered the constructive and creative instincts of children.

 Basic education is based on sound educational principle of correlation, where all

educational activities are correlated to a basic craft. Correlation also takes place
between physical environment, social environment and craft work.

 The system is based upon the cultural and social heritage of the land. As such, it
inculcates social and moral values in the minds of the students.

 It is truly an education for the whole man. It aims at a harmonious development of the
body, mind and soul.

 Basic education system recognises the dignity of labour.

 It recognises the importance of mother-tongue as the medium of instruction at the

elementary stage.

 It inculcates democratic values like co-operation, responsibility, fellow-feeling in the

minds of the students, which are essential for proper functioning of a democratic
social order.