ADVERTISEMENTS:
The Government of India appointed a university Education Commission under the chairmanship of Dr. Radhakrishnan in November 1948. The Commission made a number of significant recommendations on various aspects of higher education and submitted its report in August 1949. In the rapidly changing contemporary world, universities are undergoing profound changes in their scope, function and organisation and are in a process of rapid evolution.
Their tasks are no longer confirmed to the two traditional functions of teaching and advancement of knowledge. After the transfer of power to Indian control on 15 August 1947, great changes had taken place in the political and economic conditions of Indian society. The academic problem has also assumed new shapes.
Similarly the conception of the duties and responsibilities of the universities have become wider and they have to provide leadership in politics, administration, profession, industry and commerce. They have to meet the increasing demand for every type of higher education, literary, scientific, technical and professional. By the application and development of technical and scientific knowledge, the country will enable to attain freedom from want, disease and ignorance.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
India is rich in natural resources and her people have intelligence and energy and it is for the universities to create knowledge and train minds who would bring together the two—natural resources and human energies. Keeping these things in view the Commission suggested certain aims of University Education.
Wisdom and Knowledge:
Our ancient teachers tried to teach subjects and impart wisdom. Their ideal was wisdom along with knowledge. We cannot be wise without some basis of knowledge. No amount of factual information would take ordinary men into educated men unless something is awakened in them. Since education is both a training of minds and training of souls, it should give both knowledge and wisdom.
Aims of the Social Order:
We must have a conception of the social order for which we are educating our youth. Our educational system must find its guiding principle in the aims of the social order for which it prepares. We cannot decide what we should do and how we should do it unless we know where we are tending. Unless we preserve the value of democracy, justice, liberty, equality and fraternity, we cannot preserve our freedom. Universities must stand for these ideal causes which can never be lost so long as men seek wisdom.
Love for higher values of life:
The greatness of a country does not depend on the extent of its territory, the length of its communication or the amount of its wealth, not even on widespread education or equitable distribution of wealth, but on the love for higher values of life. If we claim to be civilized we must develop thought for the poor and the suffering, regard and respect for women, faith in human brotherhood regardless of race, colour, nation or religion, love of peace and freedom and ceaseless devotion of the claims of the justice.
Training for Leadership:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
One of the central aims of university education is the training for leadership in the professions and public life, which is difficult to realize. It is the function of universities to train men and women for wise leadership. They must enable young men and women to read with insight the record of human experience, to know the nature and consequences of ethical values, to sense the meaning of the social forces operating in the world today and comprehend the complexities and intricacies of life in all its immensity, physical, social and spiritual.
We are building a civilization, not a factory or a workshop. The quality of a civilization depends not on the natural equipment or the political machinery but on the character of men. The major task of education is the improvement of character.
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