ABSTRACT

This paper examines educational practice in terms of the division between indigenous culture of learning on the one hand, and the formal culture of learning and knowledge systems inherited from colonial times on the other. These two ‘Indias’ broadly reflect the socio-cultural background that prevailed in India at the opening of the nineteenth century, and which continued into the period of British rule. They are still reflected in the modern educational system of India seen in the vast differences between the formal school system, whose benefits reach only a minority of the population on the one hand, and the millions of crafts-persons working in India’s informal sector, many without education or training, on the other. The assumption has been that the Western formal systems of knowledge were meant to be an improvement over the indigenous informal and non-formal systems in all respects – equality, quality and access (Naik 1977). Yet, in India, the vast majority of people even at present are still educated through traditional forms of non-formal and informal education. It is indeed astonishing how small has been the impact of the formal system of education on the life of the masses, especially in rural areas. A large chasm has developed between the wellto-do, modernised elite groups, who are the almost exclusive beneficiaries of the modern system of formal education, and the poor and traditional masses who are still receiving their education through the old traditional forms of non-formal and informal education.