The first seperate department for
education was created in 1910 to look after the education in India.
But it was after India achieved its Independence on 15th
August 1947. A full fledged Ministry of Education was established on
29th August 1947. The nomenclature and responsibilities of the
Education Department has undergone some changes since Independence.
The present Department of Education is one of the four constitutent
departments of the Ministry of Human Resource Development which was
created on 26th September, 1985.
Education has been in prime focus
throughout India's development plans. Its importance can be gauged
from the fact that it is included as a part of the Directive
Principles of State Policy in the Constitution, which states that "
the State shall endeavour to provide within a period of ten years from
the commencement of this Constitution, for free and compulsory
education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen
years".
Educational policy and progress are
reviewed in the light of the goal of national development and
priorities set from time to time. The National Policy on Educatuion
was formulated in 1982, and was later updated in 1992, where specific
responsibilities for organising, implementing and financing its
proposals were assigned. The total budgetary expenditure on Education
by the Education Departments of the Centre and States has increased
from Rs. 644.6 millions in 1951-52 to Rs. 300,000 millions in 1995-96.
There are, at present 130 plan schemes in the Department with a total
Eighth Plan outlay of Rs. 74430 Millions.
The state of political and economic
affairs too are responsible for determinig the educational policy. For
example, in the second five year plan (1956-60) when heavy industries
became the basic industries, the socialistic education was given and
was put emphasis on conversion of basic education and secondary and
higher educations. Also, when India saw the economic crisis and the
school attendance rate fell in 1960's a big reconsideration on the
whole education was done establishing the advisory committee including
foreigners.
Today the system which was decided by the international conference
party is revolved. It has 10-2-3 system and in some states it has
5-3-2 system or 4-3-3 system. The elemtary education is divided into
the first term and the latter term. The secondary education is divided
to the first term and the latter term, and the first term is for
studying the extention of elementary education and the latter term is
divided into the college entering course and vocational education
course to study. It is the characteristic that scientific education
and talent education are done. The rate of the students to enter the
first term is 24.6%. For the higher education, 137 higher educational
systems aim at the improvement of the qualities of education and
research in scientific technology.
