Page 118 - Swatantrata to Atmanirbharta : Lokmanya Tilak’s legacy

this was at the time when the social fabric was marked by cast
demarcations and hierarchy. Tilak was firm that restructuring
the education system would be an antidote to the caste issues.
He believed in having an advanced education system that was
more suitable to Indian context, and not serve as assistants to
British officers. He envisioned an education system that was
built to foster independent thinking, help in living a life and
contribute to social development, which was the biggest need
of the hour. It is his vision that led to opening of small schools
and colleges.

The primary education was a standardised process that
taught same subjects to all- comprising of mainly History,
Mathematics, Geography and English. Tilak believed it served
no purpose in equipping someone to deal with daily life
challenges of a common man. He was very insightful to point
out that the standard education was driving young children and
youth away from learning their vocational skills and occupation
, and would eventually leave a huge void in the society in terms
of skilled workers. He started a sort of a renaissance to bring
in incremental but strong changes in terms of organising the
education system.
Tilak promoted the thought that the British run schools-
which were municipal schools funded by tax payers; would
create a large number of government job aspirants, who would
not get jobs. This would go against the objectives of reformers
like Mahatma Phule and Ranade. So, he first was able to create
an acceptance of the philosophy that would change the course
of education in the society. It is very much like that of a brand
manager, who knows that the acceptance of the “idea” is a
prerequisite to acceptance of the product or service.
The radical way of introducing education closest to one’s
context was to equip the municipalities with the power to choose
the content that was required to be taught. Also, municipalities
had to be empowered to hire teachers who could teach life skills
and vocational education and decide number of students to be
selected and the fees. This at that time was a huge leap. In this
journey Tilak’s vision on education was nationalist and quite
ahead of its time- where investing in curriculum, looking at
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