that existed at Hooghly, Dacca, Calcutta and Gauhati. To each was attached a Practising School. A stipend of not less than Rs. 5 was provided for the pupil-teachers. The reading of manuscripts was substituted for the History of Bengal and Geography. Formation of District Committees of Public Instruction. But the greatest of all changes brought about by the consultations of the Decentralization Commission was the entire decentralization of educational control. In each District a District Committee of Public Instruction was established to manage and supervise all ordinary Government schools, and to distribute to schools the sum allotted to the District for educational grants-in-aid. The constitution of the Committee was In Regulation Districts. * Principal of College, or Deputy Inspector of Schools. In Non-Regulation Districts. Assistant Commissioner. Deputy Inspector of Schools. The Vice-President was to be the active head of the Committee, and was to conduct the educational affairs of the District through the Deputy Inspector of Schools and the Secretary to the Committee, subject, of course, to the Resolutions of the Committee. The Sub-Inspectors working in Sub-Divisions were to be placed under the control of Sub-Divisional Officers, who were to co-operate with Educational Sub-Committees, which in their turn were to be subordinate to the District Committee of Public Instruction. The grants-in-aid to High and Middle Schools were to be made by the District * The Local Self-Government Act of 1882 terminated the career of District Committees in the Scheduled Districts. They continue a nominal existence in the NonRegulation Districts of Darjeeling, Singhbhum and the Sonthal Pergunnahs, * Magistrate or the Deputy Commissioner in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee on the advice. of the Inspector of Schools; while, similarly, grants to primary schools were to be distributed to these schools in consultation with the Deputy Inspector. The Provincial Government was to specify what sum of money was to be utilized in assisting Primary Education. In 1873 all grant-in-aid schools were removed from the control of District Committees and transferred to the management of their own school Committees under the supervision of the Inspector. Introduction of Payments-by-Results. In the end it amounted to this, that every District Officer began to control, as he thought best, the primary assignment placed at his disposal. Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry L. Harrison, District Magistrate of Midnapore, initiated the regulation of grants by taking into account the results of individual pupils in the examinations conducted by officers of the Education Department. The idea was not a new one. The Education Board (England) had made it the basis of the grant-in-aid system as set forth in the Revised Code of 1862. To this course they had been actuated by the Report of the Newcastle Commission (1861) which declared that the only way to secure improvements in elementary schools was "to institute a searching examination by competent authority of every child in every school to which grants are to be paid, and to make the prospects and position of the teacher dependent, to a considerable extent, on the results of this examination." Mr. Harrison pointed out that there was already in existence a very large number of indigenous schools, and that in proceeding to establish new patshalas without first bringing existing ones under control we should cause many of these indigenous schools to 66 * It is commonly believed that the Department of Public Instruction has always been responsible for Primary Education. The Resolution of Government on the General Report of Public Instruction in Bengal for 1887-88 states:-"Primary education since its introduction has never been placed under the control of departmental Inspectors, but of Magistrates and local committees." close in the hope of reopening as Government patshalas." He also brought to notice a new feature of Government subvention of patshalas, which had not struck others with equal force. "There is no doubt," he remarked, "that the people contribute in a much more niggardly manner to the support of the stipendiary guru, than they do to the gurus unpaid by Government." * He moreover expressed the belief that "even the indigenous school now to be taken in hand will have to be lowered, not in the quality of education, but in the object aimed at by the pupils." The Government decided to give Mr. Harrison a free hand, and when in 1873 Sir George Campbell instituted primary scholarships, it was expressly provided "that in order to keep down the standard of patshalas their courses of instruction should be confined to reading and writing the vernacular of the District; arithmetic, written and mental; bazar and zemindari accounts, and simple mensuration. The Organization incidental to the Payment-by-Results System. The system of aiding schools in proportion to the quantity and quality of their work as ascertained by the results achieved by their pupils at formal examinations, found favour in all Districts. It naturally involved the institution of tests which would not only provide a basis upon which the rewards payable to gurus might be equitably calculated, but it also enable pupils to compete for the scholarships and prizes placed within their reach. Every District was accordingly marked out, for convenience of examination, into Circles and Sub-Circles, and sub-committees of four or five members were appointed, with the Chief Guru as Assistant Secretary, for the double purpose of helping in the conduct of the examinations, and of generally promoting the cause of popular education by identifying themselves with its expansion. The examinations were two in number-a sub-centre examination for determining the rewards earned by gurus, and a central * In the Quinquennial Report for 1902-07 it is stated "the aid which they (gurus) receive is insufficient for them to subsist upon, and villagers tell them that as they are being paid by Government, they cannot expect to be paid also by parents.”. (or prize) examination for adjudicating scholarships and prizes to the most deserving pupils. The examinations at the sub-centres were conducted in situ, and were partly oral and partly written. The subjects of examination were (1) Reading and Writing, (2) Arithmetic, written and mental, (3) Zemindari and Mahajani Accounts and (4) Dictation and Explanation of Passages. The other examination, the Central Examination, was held at a convenient place, and required a more advanced knowledge of the above subjects to which was added Mensuration. In the case of the first and second subjects enumerated, the standard was divided into " higher" and "lower." The reward paid to the teacher for each pupil who passed by the former was one rupee, and for each who passed by the latter, eight annas. One rupee was the reward for each pupil who passed in Accounts. For satisfying the examiners in Dictation and the Explanation of Passages, the reward was Rs. 2 to pupil and teacher alike. In addition a special prize was given in every group of 50 candidates examined. For girls the rewards for the first three subjects were doubled. Then there were rewards in small sums of money for "registerkeeping and stability of school," so that the earnings of the less fortunate gurus might in some slight measure be augmented. In 1876-77 for the first primary examination there were 11,462 candidates from 3,110 schools in Bengal * and 5,246 satisfied the examiners. In 1880-81 there were 26,293 candidates from 7,887 schools, and 13,951 candidates acquitted themselves with success; that is to say, more than half the indigenous schools which in 1876-77 had been brought under control had in 1880-81 advanced to the full primary scholarship standard. * In 1854-55 the only Departmental elementary schools were in Assam. They numbered 69 and instructed 3,279 pupils. In 1862-63 the number of this class of schools in the Province had risen to 530 with 22,625 scholars. These schools were originally designated Lower Vernacular Schools,' and were classed in the secondary school system. In 1875 a new set of scholarships was created for them. In 1881 the indigenous schools were designated Lower Primary Schools, and the Lower Vernacular Schools were called Upper Primary Schools. In that year the latter schools were returned as 1,700 in number with 60,000 pupils. Of them 1,130 presented 2,930 pupils at the Lower Vernacular Examination, and 1,677 were successful. Each school cost Government on an average Rs. 52 a year. The Nagri and Kaithi Script officially introduced into Behar Courts. In passing it may be mentioned that primary schools in Behar were able to adopt the payment-by-results scheme because in 1880 the employment of the Nagri or Kaithi script in Courts was officially authorized. Hitherto the pandits had been under the necessity of teaching the pupils of one and the same school two and even three different alphabets; and the reading lessons had been given from books in which the characters familiar to each particular boy were used. But for the introduction of a common script, the payment-by-results system could not have been extended to the Hindi-speaking people of Behar. Annual Income of Gurus. Speaking in general terms, the payment-by-results system brought the teacher of a primary aided school an annual grant of about Rs. 9-8-0. This was augmented by his receipts from fees, say Rs. 34 per year, and further by payments in kind (sidhas). Once or twice a week pupils presented their guru with small quantities of rice, pulse, vegetable, oil, spice, tobacco and firewood.* It was also customary for them to give him larger gifts, e.g., a piece of cloth, on special occasions, such as a marriage in the family, or when the pupil began to write on paper, or was promoted from a lower to a higher class in the school. The money value of the sidhas may possibly have been twice the yield of fees. This being conceded, the gross income of a patshala teacher was about Rs. 9 a month. But however that may be, one important fact stands out prominently, and that is, that the primary schools were essentially schools maintained by the people for themselves. Some collateral Effects of the Payment-by-Results System. Although it was claimed that the payment-by-results system had "galvanized the indigenous mechanism of education into new life by infusing into it a healthy spirit * In 1908 the writer found it the establishsd custom in parts of Chota Nagpur for pupils every Saturday-hence the offerings were called "Sanichara "-to bring their teacher some of the daily necessaries of life. The monthly tuition fees ranged from nil to two annas. |