Nai Talim
The principal idea is to impart the whole education of the body, mind and soul through the handicraft that is taught to the children.
Nai Talim, or Basic Education, is a principle which states that knowledge and work are not separate. Mahatma Gandhi promoted an educational curriculum with the same name based on this pedagogical principle.[2]
It can be translated with the phrase 'Basic Education for all'.
The three pillars of Gandhi's pedagogy were its focus on the lifelong character of education, its social character and its form as a holistic process. For Gandhi, education is 'the moral development of the person', a process that is by definition 'lifelong'.[4]
Education
Gandhi's model of education was directed toward his alternative vision of the social order: "Gandhi's basic education was, therefore, an embodiment of his perception of an ideal society consisting of small, self-reliant communities with his ideal citizen being an industrious, self-respecting and generous individual living in a small cooperative community. Nai Talim also envisaged a different role for the new teacher, not simply as a professional constrained by curricula and abstract standards, but rather as a person relating directly to the student in the form of a dialogue: "A teacher who establishes rapport with the taught, becomes one with them, learns more from them than he teaches them. He who learns nothing from his disciples is, in my opinion, worthless. Whenever I talk with someone I learn from him. I take from him more than I give him. In this way, a true teacher regards himself as a student of his students. If you will teach your pupils with this attitude, you will benefit much from them."
Gandhi's disciple,
Handicrafts
Traditional and colonial forms of education had emphasized literacy and abstract, text-based knowledge which had been the domain of the upper castes. Gandhi's proposal to make handicrafts the centre of his pedagogy had as its aim to bring about a "radical restructuring of the sociology of school knowledge in India" in which the 'literacies' of the lower castes--"such as spinning, weaving, leatherwork, pottery, metal-work, basket-making and book-binding"—would be made central.
History
Gandhi's first experiments in education began at the
I hold that the highest development of the mind and the soul is possible under such a system of education. Only every handicraft has to be taught not merely mechanically as is done today, but scientifically i.e. the child should know the why and wherefore of every process....I have myself taught sandal- making and even spinning on these lines with good results. This method does not exclude a knowledge of history and geography. But I find that this is best taught by transmitting such general information By word of mouth. One imparts ten times as much in this manner as by reading and writing. The signs of the alphabet may be taught later...Of course, the pupil learns mathematics through his handicraft. I attach the greatest importance to primary education, which according to my conception should be equal to the present matriculation less English...."Harijan of the 31st July 1937 "[9]
A national education conference was held at Wardha on 22–23 October 1937. Afterwards two model schools were opened at Wardha and nearby Segaon. Post-basic education and pre-basic education schools were developed after Gandhi's death.
The National Planning Commission set up by the central government expressed its opposition to Gandhi's vision of Basic Education on several grounds. The Nehru government's vision of an industrialized, centrally planned economy had no place for 'basic education' or self-supported schools, rather it reflected the "vision of a powerful and growing class of industrialists, their supporters in politics and intellectuals with high qualifications in different areas, including science and technology."[7] A further detailed history of the attempts to implement basic education in India is given by Marjorie Sykes, The History of Nai Talim. Finally, as has been noted by Krishna Kumar, "the implementation of Gandhi's plan could not survive the 'development decade' of the 1960s when the Indian economy and its politics entered into a new phase featuring the penetration of Indian agriculture by the advanced economies of the West and the centralization of power."
Quotations
“Basic education links the children, whether of cities or the villages, to all that is best and lasting in us.”
“The principal idea is to impart the whole education of the body, mind and soul through the handicraft that is taught to the children.”
- –Mahatma Gandhi
“An education which does not teach us to discriminate between good and bad, to assimilate the one and eschew the other, is a misnomer.”
- –Mahatma Gandhi
“The aim of university education should be to turn out true servants of the people who will live and die for the country's freedom.”
- –Mahatma Gandhi
“The schools and colleges are really a factory for turning out clerks for Government.”
- –Mahatma Gandhi
“The real difficulty is that people have no idea of what education truly is. We assess the value of education in the same manner as we assess the value of land or of shares in the stock-exchange market. We want to provide only such education as would enable the student to earn more. We hardly give any thought to the improvement of the character of the educated. The girls, we say, do not have to earn; so why should they be educated? As long as such ideas persist there is no hope of our ever knowing the true value of education.”
See also
- Basic Education
- Gandhigram Rural Institute
- Mahatma Gandhi
References
- ^ Mahatma Gandhi's Legacy in Majhihira Ashram Vidyalaya school
- ISBN 9780203990612
- ^ Basic Education (buniyadi shiksha)
- ^ Dinabandhu Dehury: Mahatma Gandhi's Contribution to Education
- ^ "Vimukt Shiksha #7". www.swaraj.org. Archived from the original on 1 May 2002.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). www.ibe.unesco.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 October 2006. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
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: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ a b "Archived copy" (PDF). www.ibe.unesco.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 October 2006. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "The story of Nai Talim". iitk.ac.in. 30 May 1910. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
- ^ a b "The Story of Nai Talim".