Basic Education
Basic Education or Nai Talim is an educational concept designed by Mahatma Gandhi in 1937 that can be translated as basic education for everyone . The concept was based on his experience with the UK education system. He saw the Indian children culturally alienated and criticized career thinking, contempt for manual labor, the emergence of a new elite and growing industrialization and urbanization.
The three pillars of Gandhi's pedagogy are lifelong, social and holistic education. For Gandhi, upbringing is ´moral development of personality´, a process that lasts a lifetime.
Learning through activity
The objective of Gandhi's pedagogy can be described with the term learning through activity . The "Basic Education" should consider the following aspects:
- 7 years of primary school for all children between 7 and 14 years of age
- Combining the educational process with teaching a craft that is directly related to the social, economic and natural environment of the student. The production should help cover the costs.
- Conducting the lessons in the respective mother tongue. Hindi and English should be able to be learned.
- Introduction of co-education: boys and girls should be taught together.
- All life should take place in the village: by including the whole village in the school work, the alienated work and social structures are to be rebuilt
- Fight against illiteracy
- Harijans and other weak classes should be given special encouragement
Implementation after 1947
After 1947 , a variety of activities were developed to make basic education a reality, such as at the Thakkar Bapa Teacher Training College Bapagram, 17 km from Bangalore . By the mid-1980s, numerous efforts drained away. Critics think that this concept is too long-term and that the country needs a much faster development.
Basic Education Today
In view of the rapid economic development in India, according to Wirtschaftswoche, with a growing social gap between the castes, the question of the importance of "basic education" for Indian society arises anew: now under the aspect of empowerment to empower children . In the sense of sociology at Emil Durkheim , basic education can contribute to the integration of society , especially since Mahatma Gandhi emphasizes the value relationship in personality development. The Nobel Prize winner for economics , Amartya Sen , emphasized the great importance of a value-building approach in basic education at a conference in Edinburgh .
Quote
"The principal idea is to impart the whole education of the body, mind and soul through the handicraft that is taught to the children."
swell
- ↑ Basic Education (Nai Talim)
- ↑ Dinabandhu Dehury: Mahatma Gandhi's Contribution to Education ( Memento of March 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ NL Gupta: Mahatma Gandhi. To educational thinkers
- ^ The Relevance of Mahatma Gandhi's Educational Philosophy for the 21st Century
- ↑ Amartya Sen and Basic Education (September 17, 2012)
literature
- Mahatma K. Gandhi: Basic Education. Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad 1955.
- India aid. Association for German-Indian Development Cooperation. Info 17. Munich 1991, p. 17.
- Detlef Kantowsky : India. Society and Development. edition suhrkamp. Frankfurt am Main 1986.
- Bernhard Mann : The educational-political concepts of Mahatma Gandhi and Paulo Freire. In: Bernhard Claußen (Ed.): Studies on Political Didactics. (StzPD) Volume 9. Haag + Herchen. Frankfurt am Main 1979.
- Bernhard Mann: The Pedagogical and Political Concepts of Mahatma Gandhi and Paulo Freire. In: Bernhard Claußen (Ed.): International Studies in Political Socialization and Political Education. Volume 8. Krämer, Hamburg 1995.
- Walter Molt : The pedagogy of Mahatma Gandhi. In: Anton Hilckman (Ed.): Archive for Comparative Cultural Studies. Volume 7. Hain, Meisenheim am Glan 1970.
- B. Solanki: The Technique of Correlation in Basic Education. Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad 1958.
- Wirtschaftswoche. Focus on India. No. 6, 2006.
Web links
- Basic education and gender equality on unicef.org