ABSTRACT
Education on a mass scale, and the teaching of a large number of students personally unknown to the teacher, are modern phenomena. The commonly held view is that these phenomena date from the early nineteenth century when colonial policies in education began to take shape. Although ancient and medieval Indian societies recognized teaching as a specialized activity, it was something rather different from what is regarded as a profession today. However, these village schools cannot properly be regarded as comparable to the schools that came into being from the early nineteenth century onwards. It is not just the individual teacher who is deprived of the right to shape his daily curriculum; collectively too, teacher's organizations have had no say, or interest, in the curriculum. Such pieces could not be read for meaning, for the world they represented was altogether alien to the Indian teacher and student.
