Universal Education: Still a Distant Dream

“I beg to place the following resolution before the council for its consideration.…the state should accept in this country the same responsibility in regard to mass education that the government of most civilized countries are already discharging and that a well considered scheme should be drawn up and adhered to till it is carried out.. The well being of millions upon millions of children who are waiting to be brought under the influence education depends upon it...” The above words are the part of the resolution which Gopal Krishna Gokhale moved in Imperial Legislative Council on 18th march, 1910 for seeking provision of ‘Free and Compulsory Primary Education” in India. Irony is that one hundred years have passed but the right to education still remains a distant dream. Gopal Krishna Gokhale in fact represents many of our freedom fighters who had dreamed of the right to education to in independent India. They had identified the significance of education as an integral part of their different and complex ideologies. After attaining independence, the forefathers of our constitution continued this debate on the right to education and concluded to retain it in the directive principles of state policy. This compromise was not positively received by many of the people who wanted a more specific assurance from the Constitution. Even now after 60 years of our independence, no such right has been provided to the children of India. Successive governments at the centre had not given any consideration and have pathetically failed in providing public education in India. The people of India raised their voice for universal public education as a part of the freedom struggle. The British imperialists simply denied their demand. But in 1870, the British legalized the free and compulsory education to every British. This was done to ensure the survival of the British Empire and maintain its hegemony on the colonies. In spite of our independence and all the tall talk