Prof. S.Y. Shah accepting the Nehru Literacy Award from the former Honourable President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

I deem it a rare honor and great privilege to receive the prestigious Nehru Literacy Award of 2007. In fact, it was a pleasant surprise when I got the communication in this regard from the Secretary of the Association Dr. Madan Singh. I accept the award with utmost humility and gratitude to Indian Adult Education Association specially its President, Dr. K.C. Choudhury and Patron, Professor B. S. Garg. When I found out the names of those who received this award earlier, like Professor Malcolm Adeisheshia, Professor Ram Lal Parikh, Dr. Madhuri Shah, Dr. Lakhidhar Mishra, I feel humbled and know that I have to do much more work in the field of Adult Education to be really worthy of it.

On this occasion, I would like to recall one question which has been often asked by my friends and colleagues. How did I enter the field of Adult Education? Was it a deliberate choice or compulsion of circumstances? Here I would like to express sincere gratitude to my teacher Professor Tapas Majumdar, an eminent economist, and the former Honorary Director of Adult Education Programme at Jawaharlal Nehru University, who not only offered me an opportunity to work in this field but also encouraged and guided me to focus on research and publications and strive to develop Adult Education as discipline of study. He felt that University Adult Education should be qualitatively different from government programmes and should aim at strengthening Adult Education as a field of practice and discipline of study mainly through, academic programmes, researches and publications. He was of the view that the role of university should not be confined to setting up hundreds of literacy centers following official guidelines of the University Grants Commission but to establish few centers on an experimental basis with a view to generate new knowledge. His views greatly appealed to me and guided my subsequent work. Since I had the background of History of Education, having done my Doctorate in that field under the distinguished historian Professor Sarvepalli Gopal, I decided to concentrate on History of Adult Education. Looking back, I feel the decision to focus on historical research in Adult Education, which is a relatively neglected area, has been very fruitful. As I began research and review of literature, I realized that hardly any efforts have been made in this area. The few publications on the History of Indian Adult Education, written by experienced adult educators were mainly based on reports and personal observations and did not make use of the variety of primary sources like personal papers, diaries, minutes of meetings and other unpublished sources without which it would be difficult to do justice to historical writings. The mainstream historians considered research on issues related to Education to be a marginal field and invariably ignored Adult Education. Most of the publications on History of Indian Education hardly discussed Adult Education.

My search for primary sources for undertaking historical research took me to many archives and libraries in India and abroad. I noticed that there is not only lack of awareness about the importance of Adult Education in India but also disinterest in preserving documents related to this area. In government departments, a regular annual exercise is undertaken for weeding out unimportant documents. When I was working at the Planning Commission, I was assigned the job of weeding out unimportant documents of the Education Division. To my surprise, I found that all the files related to Adult Education were marked as “not important” and “to be destroyed”. On further examination, I found that those files pertained to the National Adult Education Programme which was one of the most significant initiatives in the field of Indian Adult Education. I told the Section Officer who was assisting me to mark them as “Most Significant - To be preserved”. He looked shocked and told me that if such unimportant files of the Education Division were to be preserved, there will be no storage space in the Record Room of the Planning Commission. He was confident that in all probability Adult Education files would not be selected by the National Archives- the official repository of government documents. Hence it is not very surprising that the National Archives of India has very few documents related to Adult Education. The same situation seems to prevail in the Ministry of Human Resource Development. When I was granted special permission to consult the records kept at the Record Room of the Ministry by the then Secretary Mr. Anil Bordia, I found that the corridor leading to the Record Room was littered with files to be destroyed and I had to walk over it. Out of curiosity, I picked up a file which was about the setting up the first important institution in adult education –National Fundamental Education Center and contained several papers and correspondence of the former Education Secretary, Dr. Prem Kirpal. Since they were to be destroyed, I sought the permission of the Record Room in Charge to have the file for my research and I was told that they cannot be given as they are marked for destruction. In the absence of important files which record the observations of officials, it would be difficult to know how and why certain policy decisions have been taken. Hence there is a need to sensitize the officials about the importance of Adult Education and preserving the key files .This task may be taken up as a legitimate activity of professional organizations like the Indian Adult Education Association.

The situation in Non-Governmental Organizations is more pathetic. Due to the lack of trained staff, shortage of resources and awareness about the importance of preserving documents, leading Adult Education institutions like the Seva Mandir in Udaipur established by Dr. Mohan Sinha Mehta and Literacy House established by Dr. Wealthy Fisher and Indian Adult Education set up in 1939 have not done much to preserve their heritage. In connection with my research on Dr. Mohan Sinha Mehta who set up the first University Department of Adult Education in India in Rajasthan University, I visited Seva Mandir -an organization set up by Dr.Mehta-and found that the documents are just dumped in the basement and with great difficulty, the Administrative Officer could locate a file on Adult Education in which Mohan Sinha Mehta had recorded his views on University Adult Education. While in the Literacy House, some of selected documents are exhibited in the library, they are neither catalogued nor preserved properly. Being associated with Indian Adult Education Association which has a history of seven decades and functioned as a think tank and closely associated with the planning and implementation of several important programs of the Government of India and international organizations, I discussed the need for preserving important documents and photographs of our predecessors with the President Dr. K.C. Choudhury, who endorsed the idea. I hope in due course, the Association will have a digital archive of all its publications, papers and photographs. In this connection, I feel the IAEA being the premier national professional organization should make systematic efforts to collect important papers and documents from all the Non Governmental Organizations involved in Adult Education to be systematically catalogued and preserved and made available to scholars.

I have observed that most of the Adult Educators who have done excellent work at grassroots level and in that process gained rich experiences and insights have rarely bothered to record their work and ideas for the benefit of others. Perhaps, they had neither the time nor resources or training to document the work When I discussed the importance of documentation with Dr. S.C. Dutta, earlier General Secretary of the IAEA, he told me that it would be better if the academicians who have the time and training, interview the field workers and administrators and record their views for publication and research. Following his suggestion, I started the process by interviewing him as he had long years of experience in the field of Adult Education. His interview threw light on the key role played by Dr. Robby Kidd, the renowned Canadian Adult Educator in formulating the recommendations on Continuing Education in the Report of Indian Education Commission,1964 (Kothari Commission). Subsequently, I interviewed Professors James Draper, Alan Rogers and H.S. Bhola which brought out the influences of Canada and Britain on shaping University Adult Education in India. From these interviews, I came to know that while Dr. Mohan Sinha Mehta was keen to promote need based Continuing Education Programme through universities; Dr. Malcolm Adeisheishayya did not favor the idea and felt that universities should promote Andragogy and offer Masters and Doctoral Programmes. Their views had direct bearing on the Adult Programmes offered by the Universities of Rajasthan and Madras where they served as Vice Chancellors.

The interviews with some of the civil servants especially Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee and Jagan Mathew- both of whom had served as the Director General of National Literacy Mission at various points of time revealed the intricacies of financing and various hurdles in the path of utilization of funds for Adult Education. From the interview with Shri. S.K. Mukherjee, a former Chief Secretary of Bihar who participated in the Mass Literacy Campaign in Bihar during 1939-40 and the study of papers given by him, it became clear that the strategies of the Total Literacy Campaign (TLC) of Ernakulam in 1989 were no different from those of Bihar and perhaps TLC model owes its origin to Bihar literacy campaign. In the absence of official files, such interviews with activists and civil servants would generate valuable resources for writing an authentic history of Adult Education. Perhaps it would be a good idea if the Indian Adult Education Association sponsors an Oral History Project at the national level so that interested members of the Association could join this project by identifying and interviewing selected Adult Educators in different parts of the country who have made significant contributions to the field of Adult Education.

As the Chinese saying goes, a single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study, it would be worthwhile to document the work, experiences and wisdom of our Adult Educators which would not only motivate others but also shed light on the growth of Adult Education in India.

I conclude here by thanking IAEA for bestowing on me the Nehru Literacy Award in recognition of my humble contributions to the field of Adult Education.

Thank You

S. Y. Shah