DISCUSSION 65 connected with skill, maintenance and innovations in unsophisticated technology. Fourthly, opportunities should be created for education up to the highest level for children from socially and economically backward sections. This should be done by removing imbalances, giving more concessions, creating proper enviroment through community development and removing artificial barriers like English as the medium of education. Fifthly, the social obligation of education should be emphasised. All factors responsible for social stratification consequent upon acquiring a particular type of education should be removed. Respect for manual labour should be inculcated in the students and education must be related to the realities of life. Sixthly, bureaucracy in education should be completely eliminated. There should be free flow of ideas in administrative and academic fields. Democratic representation in the administrative and academic bodies must be given to all sections of the people on the campus. Technical Education in Gwalior Division Gwalior division is economically, poltically and educationally a backward region.7 The former rulers of Gwalior State had a vested interest in keeping the region educationally backward. They did not want politically conscious people, who would have opposed feudal and landlord exploitation. The only technical institute in the whole of the then Gwalior State, comprising seven districts of present day Madhya Pradesh, was a polytechnic in Gwdlior established in 1905. The first and only engineering college in the division was started in 1957. Presently the technical institutions in Gwalior division are : one engineering college, two polytechnics, three industrial training institutes and one technical higher secondary school. The engineering college also runs post-graduate courses for its teachers. The degree courses are in (i) civil (ii) electrical and (iii) mechanical engineering. There are diploma courses in the above three branches and textile technology. I T I gives training in over fifteen trades. In the engineering college, the intake of students is 120. In a survey conducted by the author it was found that over fifty per cent of the students comes from large towns (population : 50 thousand or more), thirty five per cent from families with over six thousand rupees annual income and only eighteen per cent comes from families with annual incomes less than three thousand rupees.8 The percentage of scheduled caste students is about eight. Polytechnics admit over two hundred students, a majority of them coming from small towns and villages. The number of scheduled caste students is about 12 per cent. ITIs admit over one thousand students, mostly from poor families, and twentyfive per cent of scheduled caste origin. Standard of Education The prerequisites for raising the standard of technical education