It is generally believed that the indigenous vernacular education in India was oral, controlled by certain sections of the population and exclusive in nature. However, the archival data of 16,000 indigenous vernacular schools gives a very different picture. In 1813, the British Parliament earmarked 100,000 rupees a year for education in India. The colonial government did not utilise the amount. The British liberals collected the data on indigenous schools to urge the colonial government to spend on improving these schools. The data is diverse and covers the Madras, Bombay and Bengal Presidencies and North Western Provinces (Uttar Pradesh). It comprises nine linguistic groups – Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Odia, Tamil, and Telugu. It was collected between 1819 and 1838 by British officials and civilians proficient in local vernaculars.

William Adam, a Sanskrit and Bengali scholar, collected the data for Bengal and Bihar. He sat in the classrooms and observed the method of teaching. So we have first-hand information on classroom practices of both Sanskrit and Bengali schools of Bengal. Many Sanskrit Pundits continued to correspond with Adam in Sanskrit long after the data collection was over. A.D. Campbell, who collected the data for the Bellary district, was proficient in both Kannada and Telugu languages.

This episode of BIC Talks which took place in early July 2023, by Parimala V Rao Historian & Professor, History of Education, Jawaharlal Nehru University covers access, curriculum, textbooks, school holidays, fees charged by the teachers and the colonial policy towards them. It will also address how education became exclusive by the end of the nineteenth century.

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