Bombay Civil Service, “the active and intelligent Educational Inspector of the Guzerat Division.”
“That officer has described, in strong terms, the discouragement and loss of time sustained by him in his attempts to secure the voluntary consent of the people to the establishment of Schools under the grant-in-aid system, and the disappointment which frequently ensues on finding that, when the requisite consent has with difficulty been obtained, persons who have acquiesced in the measure have drawn back from their engagement on being called on for the payment of their subscriptions.”
The present Director of Public Instruction in Bengal thus shows the want of permanence in aided Schools after they have been established:—
“It may be useful here to record that from March 1855, when the grant-in-aid system was first brought into operation, down to the 30th April 1862, a period of seven years, the number of Schools for which monthly grants were sanctioned amounted to 479, and that during the same period no fewer than 162 of this number, or nearly 34 per cent, of the whole, were from time to time abolished. This statement may be taken as a fair indication of the great instability of Schools under private management, which depend for their support on a source of income so precarious as monthly subscriptions.”[1]
3. Cheap Books are still a crying want: Babu Bhudev Mookerjee in the last report only echoes a general feeling when he states:—
“A series of cheap elementary works for the use of our Patshalas is a standing desideratum. The prices of books hitherto in use have been considerably increased, and it is apprehended that the poorer classes of our countrymen, for whom these institutions are especially intended, can ill afford to purchase them. In the course of my inspection, I visited villages inhabited chiefly by the agricultural classes of the people. On addressing them for the establishment of Patshalas in their villages I heard it stated in several instances by them that the system of instruction of which I talked was too expensive to serve their purpose, that the purchase of books formed a great part of the expense of a School education, and that the means within their reach were too limited to procure it for their children. There was certainly much truth in what they said, and the only way to render our Patshalas suitable to the wants of those for whom they are intended, is to introduce a series of cheap books. The price of the first Book of Reading ought never to exceed half an anna, while that of tho last should always be within two annas.”
- ↑ Respecting grants-in-aid being liable to fraud, the following cases have occurred in Bengal in Schools under native management:—
“A master complains that his salary has not been paid. On enquiry, his receipt in full is handed to the Inspector. The signature is admitted to be genuine, but the Master asserts that it was forced from him by a threat of dismissal, and maintains, sometimes certainly with justice, that he has not received his due, or, perhaps, rather than lose his situation, he consents to give his name as a monthly subscriber of a comparatively large amount, sometimes a third of his entire pay, and only receives the difference between his nominal salary and his equally nominal subscription. In some few cases the accounts submitted to the Inspector have proved altogether imaginary. Fees, subscriptions, and subscribers alike, though carefully entered in detail, existed only in paper, the Government grant being made to cover the whole expense of the School. Serious irregularities of this kind were in several instances reported to Government in former years, and the grants were in consequence annulled, a punishment which fell exclusively on the unfortunate children, and did not touch the real culprits.”
