- The Congress had organised a National Conference on Education in October 1937 in Wardha.
- In the light of the resolutions passed there, Zakir Hussain committee formulated a detailed national scheme for basic education.
- The main principle behind this scheme was ‘learning through activity’.
- It was based on Gandhi’s ideas published in a series of articles in the weekly Harijan.
- Gandhi thought that Western education had created a gulf between the educated few and the masses and had also made the educated elite ineffective.
- The system, rather than being a methodology for education, was an expression of an idea for a new life and a new society. The basic premise was that only through such a scheme would India be an independent and non-violent society. This scheme was child-centred and cooperative.
| The scheme had following provisions: 1. Inclusion of a basic handicraft in the syllabus. 2. First seven years of schooling to be an integral part of a free and compulsory nationwide education system (through mother tongue). 3. Teaching to be in Hindi from class II to VII and in English only after class VIII. 4. Ways to be devised to establish contact with the community around schools through service. 5. A suitable technique to be devised with a view to implementing the main idea of basic education—educating the child through the medium of productive activity of a suitable handicraft. |