DISCUSSION
On Technical Education with Special Reference to Gwalior Administrative Division
EDUCATIONAL planning in a backward country must needs be based on the premise that the people are the most valuable resource material for social and economic development. Consequently it should be the endeavour of the state to constantly improve the physical and mental capabilities of its people. It is obvious that the expenditure on education has to be considered as an investment in the development of society and not as an outlay of charity.
Needless to say, the present approach to education in India is not even remotely connected with the above concept. The ruling classes in India have perpetuated, in their own self-interest, the colonial system of education established during British rule. To expect any radical change in the educational policies from those classes will be no more than wishful thinking.
This paper is primarily intended to stimulate discussion on aspects of technical education. It is the contention of the author that making even revolutionary changes in the pattern of higher educati m, without solving in a democratic and scientific way the problems of primary and secondary education and of unemployment, will be a futile exercise.
A biased approach of the ruling classes towards education and their subservience to imperialist interests are acutely manifested in the field of technical education. The higher institutes1 like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the Biria Institute of Technology and Science (Pilani), the Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) or Roorkee University provide education to students from the most privileged sections of society. Then there are engineering colleges for the sons and daughters of businessmen, middle-level executives and landlords. Polytechnics are meant for the boys with lower middle class origin and the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) are at the bottom as the poor man's institutions.2
The annual per capita expenditure incurred by the state on a student in a higher institute is over ten thousand rupees : in an ordinary engineering college it works out at about Rs 1500. The expenditure is