English Education has Enslaved Us


Civilizing The Native Educating The Nation II - Concepts
Class - 8th CBSE Subjects
 
 
Concept Explanation
 

English Education has Enslaved Us

The Agenda for A National Education: “English education has enslaved us”

British officials were not the only people thinking about education in India . From the early 19th century many thinkers from different parts of the country began to talk of the need for a wider spread pf education . impressed with development in Europe , some Indians felt that western education would help the India to make modernise .They urged the British to open more schools, colleges, universities, and spend higher expenses on education.

Some of the Indians were against the western education like Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. The following are the reasons for their opposition towards western education:

  • Mahatma Gandhi argued that colonial education created a sense of inferiority in the minds of Indians. It made them see western civilization as superior, and destroyed the pride they had in their own culture.
  • There was poison in this education, said Mahatma Gandhi, it was sinful, it enslaved Indians, it cast an evil spell on them.
  • Mahatma Gandhi wanted an education that could help Indians recover their sense of dignity and self-respect. During the national movement he urged students to leave educational institutions in order to show to the British that Indians were no longer willing to be enslaved.
  • Mahatma Gandhi strongly felt that Indian languages ought to be the medium of teaching.
  • Education in English crippled Indians, distanced them from their own social surroundings, and made them “strangers in their own lands”.
  • Speaking a foreign tongue, despising local culture, the English educated did not know how to relate to the masses.
  • Western education, Mahatma Gandhi said, focused on reading and writing rather than oral knowledge; it valued textbooks rather than lived experience and practical knowledge. He argued that education ought to develop a person’s mind and soul. Literacy- or simply learning to read and write- by itself did not count as education. People had to work with their hands, learn a craft, and know how different things operated. This would develop their mind and their capacity to understand.
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    Sample Questions
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    Question : 1

    The English Education Act was introduced in _______

    Right Option : D
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    Explanation
    Question : 2

    William Jones was a _________ .

    Right Option : A
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    Explanation
     
     


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