ABSTRACT
Confucian academies, Buddhist viharas, Hindu asramas, Islamic maktabs and madrasahs, all provide evidence of the importance of learning and education in the history of Asian societies. Linked to religious or ethical systems, these indigenous forms of education focused on the development of the individual as the foundation of social living and development. At times these systems of thought existed independently and at others they interacted as migration and sometimes aggression saw one system replace another. The link between religion and education is by no means unique, finding a clear parallel with the West where premodern times were also characterized by religion’s claim over the educational process. This process in the West, just as in Asia, was necessarily one where education was an elitist enterprise focused on transcendental objectives. Just as such a concept was discarded in the West under pressure from developmental needs, so too was it rejected in Asia under pressure from Westernization. In its place came the idea of mass education, linked initially to the needs of modern, and subsequently postmodern, economies. The nature and forms of mass education will be an important focus of this book.
