This companion gives a comprehensive overview of the history of primary education in India. It presents an analytical narrative of the progress of primary education as a national endeavour in colonial, post-colonial and contemporary India, and studies its transformative policy journey culminating in the adoption of education as a fundamental human right. The book looks behind and beyond stated policy goals and outcomes to examine the processes involved in implementing positive change and discusses the underlying socio-political factors affecting education in India. The author also shares reflections on the reform measures needed to achieve the goal of education for all in India. Rich in archival resources, this companion will be essential reading for scholars and researchers of history of education, education, Indian history, colonial history and South Asian history. It will also be useful for policymakers, organizations and professionals working in the field of education.

This book explores the problems present in Bengal villages specifically, which represent problems found within the rest of rural India, therefore the same measures with very little modification could be employed in the work of rural reconstruction and rural education in those parts. The author discusses issues related to the government, as well as the caste system, and the social and religious customs, which he has argued not only hampered the path to progress, but reduced the people further and further to misery and despair.

Good quality education is an essential tool for achieving a more sustainable world. This was emphasised at the UN World Summit in Johannesburg in 2002 where the reorientation of current education systems was outlined as key to sustainable development. Education for sustainable development (ESD) promotes the development of the knowledge, skills, understanding, values, and actions required to create a sustainable world, which ensures environmental protection and conservation, promotes social equity, and encourages economic sustainability. The concept of ESD developed largely from environmental education, which has sought to develop the knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, and behaviours in people to care for their environment. The aim of ESD is to enable people to make decisions and carry out actions to improve our quality of life without compromising the planet. It also aims to integrate the values inherent in sustainable development into all aspects and levels of learning. Education and the future are inseparably intertwined. It is impossible to think about educational matters without making references to the future. Our understanding of future determines, for example, what knowledge and which skills are important for the next generation. Regarding sustainability issues, it makes a difference whether sustainability is thought as a concrete aim which can be reached through technical innovation and efficiency, or whether it is more a normative direction which needs to be determined democratically. Futures in education determine decisions in the present and thus can be understood as “futures for the present.” If the future is the same as the present or can be predicted with any certainty, then it would seem to be not so difficult to decide what the next generation should best be equipped with. However, if the future is presumed to be uncertain, which is ultimately the case, then the necessary knowledge and skills are not that easy to determine.On closer observation of society and educational practice, the described idealized picture of education seems difficult to maintain. Especially institutionalized education isfar from being free of external influences. The promise of a better future has been shattered because of a few severe global crises. Future in post-modern societies has come to be understood,instead, as uncertain, and contingent.