The Conceptual Premise of Gandhi's Nai Talim and its Relevance in Present

Scenario

Vinay Kumar Verma, Junior Research Fellow, Faculty of Education (K), Banaras Hindu
University, Varanasi-221010, U.P., vinaykumarverma49@ gmail.com

Dr. Alok Gardia, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education (K), Banaras Hindu University,
Varanasi-221010, U.P, alokeducator@gmail.com

Introduction

It is known to all that Education is the panacea for all type of social and economic sufferings like
unemployment, poverty, social discrimination, intolerance mental stress, increasing suicidal
tendencies among youths, and environmental hazardous etc. Therefore, the education system of
the country should be revised time to time as per emerging need and aspirations grounded on
ideas of educational philosophies of great educationist and nationalist who have visualized and
given the concepts, which may serve guiding principles. On such backdrop, looking to the efforts
like Make in India, Digital India or life skill education or lifelong education we may revisit and
revitalize Nai Talim (Basic Education) propounded by Mahatma Gandhi in 1937 at Wardha
conference. Nai Talim (Basic Education) is an embodiment of Gandhi’s perception of an ideal
society as one consisting of small self-reliant communities. It advocates such genre of education
which should be based on need, aspirations and interest of the society aimed to achieve the
harmonious development of children through body, mind, heart and soul and can be best
imparted through local craft, productive works and work experience. All these elements when
blended and served through teaching learning process, produces best citizen of the country
possessing innovative, productive and responsible leadership virtues.

The idea of Nayi Talim also known as Basic Education or Buniyadi Shiksha was given by
Mahatma Gandhi decades before we attained independence from the Britishers. It was based on
the thought that education should be centered on a productive work or vocation such as weaving
cloth, farming or agriculture, shoe-making, etc. These works need to be chosen keeping the child
and his local environment in mind. It was grounded on the 3Hs – Head, Heart, and Hand and
claimed that work and intelligence are inseparable. Education under this was to be given through
the child’s mother tongue and the foundation of this education was on sound moral principles.
(Chawla,2015)

It is an approach to the total personality development based on four basic principles ( Panse,
2007):

● Education or learning in mother tongue along with handicraft work,

● Work should be linked with most useful vocational needs of the locality,
● Learning should be linked with vocational work and
● Work should be socially useful and productive needed for living.

Conceptual Premise of Nai Talim

Nai Talim ​is education of human beings into thinking and productively working and not training
of animals into writing and reading leading a dependent life .Nai talim is not alienated
assumption based on learning of a given reality but it is involved experiential learning of
evolving reality. Education provides and reinforces the values system. It creates the interpreters
as well as performers. Interpretation is to be based on experience of performance as well as
interaction with the local real world and not estranged from it .Nai Talim is practice of truth and
non violence in the learning environment together by the teacher and the taught. Method of Nai
Talim includes preparing the place of study and keeping it clean. Students learn to manage the
school and its resources in turn through .the students learn local history through discussion with
elders and local geography by visiting neighborhood. Maths and sciences are to be learnt in the
class room as well as while learning a productive and economically valuable trade and also
playing games and participation in sports. Learning morals through song, dance , and drama on
lives of great thinkers and social reformers is a way to learn a language. (Experiential learning
Gandhi’s Nai Talim, MGNCRE, 2018).

Nai Talim stresses on indigenous scheme of education with due regard to the creative and
constructive capacity of children and the needs of the locality. Gandhi ji thought of an education
system which could integrate the intellectual work with physical labour for development of a
society with a new order of equality of academic and livelihood opportunities at all its strata,
self-reliance, co-operation among people, respect of others’ culture and sensitivity towards the
environment. He (Gandhi) was of the viewpoint that learning inputs should be spread over the
entire surrounding environment and the society which can easily be harnessed. Knowledge and
skills should be constructed in practical affairs of life. Hence, the entire education should be
imparted through the medium of a productive craft/vocation correlated with appropriate
scientific concepts and processes, social science education, liberal education, human values and
environment education. This makes learning more concrete, insightful and applicable. Such
education enables the individuals to solve the problems of their living and also develop the
qualities of educated and productive citizenship. The education rooted in the culture and life of
the soil and having strong connection to the environment removes class and caste distinction,
brings social solidarity and national integration and inculcates social, moral and aesthetic values
in children. (Kumari,2016)
Gandhi insisted on dignity of labour and thinks that vocation-oriented education can promote this
ideal among the students. This education would incorporate an attitude in the mind of the
students to look upon manual work and intellectual work on equal term. This will usher in a
revolutionary change in our work-culture and mental attitude as well. Further education imparted
through handicraft will bring a harmonious development of hand, head and heart. For
craft-centered education would also involve intelligent planning, theoretical soundness and
proper evaluation. (Nai Talim) education can also establish an intimate relation between the
teacher and taught, for in the act of teaching and learning they work together to produce
something. In the process the teacher inculcates the art of living in the student. Character
building is another important objective of basic education.
In recent years many states have shown an eagerness to restart vocational education from Class
IX under the newly formed National Skills Qualifications Framework. However, as NCF 2005 is
at pains to point out again and again, .Nai Talim ​is not vocational education: Nai Talim ​is using
productive work as one of the main pedagogic tools to teach all the subjects right from Class I
leading to harmonious development of the head, the hand and the heart. (Sinha, 2015)
 Nai Talim (Basic Education) has the functions of Sociological, Pedagogical and Spiritual
Functions (MGNRE, 2018)
• Universal minimum education to all the children which Gandhiji called as basic education
• This system of education is indigenous and not imported from other countries and therefore
it is National - it is basic National Education.
• The course of this education is to run for seven years beginning from the age of seven. It
does not cover pre – school state and post basic state.
• Basic education must be imparted through the mother tongue.
• In its method i.e., teaching learning practices, it must be woven around some sort of art or
handicraft.
• The craft chosen must be systematically learnt with a view to efficiency and practical results.
• The product of the craft must be economically paying.
• Effort should be made to see that the money value of the work done covers the pay of the
teacher.
• The state should cover the rest of the expenses of school buildings, furniture, books, maps
and the whole of apparatus including tools for the crafts/work education.

Fundamental elements of Nai Talim

Nayi Talim ​reflects that in craft based education; practical skills serve as the center and
foundation of an individuals’spritual, cultural and social development. There are three core
elements of Nai talim i.e. Experiential learning, Work experience and Community work and
Social action.
Experiential learning
Experiential learning engages students in thinking, problem solving and decision making in
context that are personally relevant to them. This approach of learning also involves making
opportunities for debriefing and consolidation of ideas and skills through feedback, reflection
and application of ideas and skills to new situation (Experiential Learning, UNESCO,). Nai
Talim provides opportunities to the students for concrete and active learning (live Experience)
through field engagements, working in-group, lab method and experimentation under the
flagship umbrella of craft based work education.
Work Experience
Work is a part of the childhood of most Indian children. Children participate in tasks like
cooking, cleaning, sweeping, gardening as well sometimes in farming, pottery, carpentry,
stitching and weaving of various products, fishing, food processing etc.. Children learn not only
the aforesaid skills in this process but also various social and affective competencies like
cooperative working in a group, tolerance, respect, discipline, creativity, effective
communication, aesthetics and entrepreneurship-cum-social accountability, in this process. The
Education commission (1964-66) clearly states, “work- experience is…a method of integrating
education and work’. It further states that Work-experience ‘’can help to make the distinction
between intellectual and manual work less marked as also the social stratification based on it. It
could make the entry of youth into the world of work and employment easier by enabling them
to adjust themselves to it. It could contribute to the increase of national productivity both by
helping students to develop insights into productive processes and the use of science, and by
generating in them the habit of hard and responsible work. And it might help social and national
integration by strengthening the links between the individual and the community and by creating
bonds of understanding between the educated persons and the masses.” Thus, work experience is
an essential part of Nai Talim.
​Community work and social action
The Kothari Commission (1964-66) considered social service as one of the basic elements for
good and purposeful education and recommended that “some form of social and national service
needs to be made obligatory for all students and needs to form an integral part of education at all
stages (Sections 1.39-1.40).”The Ishwarbhai Patel Committee Report (1977), while reviewing
NCERT’s ten-year school curriculum framework (1975), observed that the curriculum needs to
be capable of relating learning “closely to socially productive manual work and the
socioeconomic situation of the country” and making it available “in such a way that working and
learning can always be combined.” Preferring the term “purposive, meaningful, manual work” in
the curriculum as Socially Useful Productive Work (SUPW), the Committee observed: “The
purpose of demarcating a distinct curricular area as Socially Useful
Productive Work is to emphasize the principle that education needs to be work-centered. The
aim of this curricular area is to provide children with opportunities of participating in social and
economic activities inside and outside the classroom, enabling them to understand scientific
principles and processes involved in different types of work and in the setting in which they are
found in the physical and social environment . It needs to not be confined to the four walls of the
school, nor can they be provided by the teacher only. Programmes needs to, therefore, be so
planned and implemented that the local community, community development organizations and
governmental agencies participate in them and cooperate with the school.” Report of the Review
Committee on “The Curriculum for the Ten-Year School” (1977),Thus Nai Talim includes
community works and social actions.

​Relevance of Nai Talim in present era

The aim and objectives of society as well s a country is best obtained through such education,
which eradicates problems of human beings, fulfills their basic needs and fitted into the skeleton
of overall development including self-sufficiency and employment. As we have discussed Nai
Talim which emphasizes on production, solution of economic and environmental crises, social
and national integration, indigenous system of education, dignity of labour, character building
and imagination of ideal society possessing peace and harmony. Thus, it can be said that Nai
Talim provides core points for over all development of individual and society.
The purpose of education is to inculcate a sense of social responsibility in the individual. Any
system of education must be achieving social goals. Nai talim (basic Education) insists on the
cultivation of a high sense of social consciousness. The purpose of learning moral behavior is to
regulate one’s conduct in society. In Nai Talim, participation in community, group activity, and
celebrations of festivals will inculcate team spirit, cooperation, sympathy, self-discipline, truth
justice and non-violence. All these virtues will hone the quality of life of the students.
Nai Talim in present time shall focus on conservation of biological resources with emphasis on
conservation of river and surface waters. Our villages are nurseries of natural and cultural
resources. Now our medium is work on our waters and seeds in our agriculture sector. Protection
of our natural water not only from pollution but also from appropriation though bottling is the
new content of Nai Talim . Protection of local species of flowers, fruits and food grains is the
content of today’s Nai Talim. Conservation of natural resources is the basic objective under Nai
Talim.(Introduction, MGNRE,2018). Gandhiji also insisted that his scheme (nai Talim) for
primary education would include "the elementary principles of sanitation, hygiene, nutrition,"
besides "compulsory physical training through musical drill. Gandhiji argues that his scheme
would make students strong, confident and useful to their parents and their country. Gandhiji
adds that his system would lead to communal harmony because it would be the same for all; it
would this be "practical religion, the religion of self help."

In present era when people are living an isolated life, being victims of social discrimination,
intolerance and suffering the prangs of unemployment. In such scenario, it can be stated that Nai
Talim which advocates education through work experience, activity based education,
experiential learning and self sufficiency as well as entrepreneurship may help to cut down and
eradicate the problems and produce skilled, creative and social individuals who will hone the
economic productivity of the country and maintain the peace, harmony and social solidarity in
the country to maintain the constitutional values which are synonymous to Gandhian Values like
socialism, secularism, democracy and sovereignty of the nation forever. The modern system of
education acts as an instrument to increase the value of consumerism, materialism, undue
competition and violence. The growing concern over the erosion of ethical values, youth unrest,
ecological violence and increasing cynicism in society have brought to focus the need of revival
of indigenous Indian heritage and life-style. Gandhiji could foresee such possible developments
half a century ago and advocated a new alternative of Basic education (Shah, 2017). By which
Of course, the emphasis on learning through craft may be retained, but perhaps modified to suit
the times. His educational thoughts are based on eternal principles of truth, love, self-sacrifice,
character building non-violence, so, will never lose their relevance. The requirement is to adapt
his thoughts according to the present scenario. When Environmental consciousness, moral
values, intrapersonal skills, community and society oriented awareness are all inculcated in
young minds through education, then only development of the country in true sense can be
possible.(Tondon, 2019). Thus , All the above discussed points advocates the appropriateness
and relevance of Nai Talim in present scenario.
Conclusion
Learning zero budgets natural farming is today’s Nai Talim. The individual work turns into
group work which in turn becomes team work that is Nai Talim. It is not acquisition of only
some marks and some grades. It is teachers and students working together on ameliorating
distress of communities. Nai Talim is education of humans into thinking and productively
working and not training of animals into writing and reading consequently leading a dependent
life.(MGNRE,2018)
As we know that Gandhi’s contribution has been incredible and invaluable in the country as well
as in the world in each and every aspects of life. His philosophy of life and education are being
followed by masses and their tools of protest, peaceful resistance (Satyagrah) based on
non-violence (whatever he did against Britishers) are still pertinent as before. His educational
philosophy in terms of Nai Talim provides a new approach to tackle the ongoing crises and
innovative solutions by providing work experience, experiential learning and community and
social actions during education.
Thus, it can be concluded that the essence of Nai Talim along with all its basic components are
very much relevant and present educational reforms may take inspiration from such a
revolutionary concept. The components like experiential learning have wide implications
towards teaching learning at all levels of education. Moreover, the concept of work experience is
very much adhere to life skill education and demands attention by policy makers that it will
develop a holistic personality of the learners to face the challenges of life.
The most significant part of Nai Talim is its stress on community participation; today’s youth
seriously lack a community orientation and a deep desire to serve the cause of humanity.
Provisions of community service at all levels of education will generate social values among
students and it will further contribute to enrich the democratic fabric of the country. Thus, the
entire concept of Nai Talim deserves a serious attention of all educational stakeholders to address
the concerns raised far before by Gandhiji in the year 1937. Education guided by such ideals will
definitely be a national treasure and serve to be a strong medium of social reformation.

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