The encounter between the pre-colonial education system in India, dominated by poor teachers and students, and the British education system, which defended and perpetuated the ‘English class system’, created a complex and problematic relationship. This article explores this problematic relationship between poverty and education in the discourse of the colonial state as well as of Indian nationalists.
LegislativeCouncil that there were 71 boys' high schools and only seven for girls'. He pleaded for funds to start girls' schools throughout Bombay presidency. 1 Tilak attacked the lone girls' high school in Poona 'for teaching secular subjects and housing high class girls as well as low class girls'. By 1900 the school had 230 girls of whom 128 were Brahmin, 73 non-Brahmin, and 30 Parsi, native Christian and Jewish. Tilak's objections were to what he called 'the cosmopolitan sprit of the school'. 2 He emphasised that:The object of female education is not to make the women equal of man. . .it must also be remembered that women having to perform the wifely and maternal duties require a fund of energy to perform them satisfactorily. Their energies in other directions
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