Development of School Education in Erode District from Colonial Period to Modern Era: A Historical Analysis

Abstract

The historical evolution of school education in Erode District indicates larger changes, which took place in the sphere of South Indian education since the colonial epoch up to the modern times. Erode is a historically important area of Tamil Nadu and had gone through tremendous transformations through the colonial administrative policies, the missionary efforts alongside the native reaction and the post independence governmental policies. Before the modern schools were formed, the local communities had indigenous schools like temple based schools and gurukala, which taught the classics and religious books and practical knowledge in the community. The coming of the British colonial rule in the nineteenth century came with new educational policies that encouraged western
knowledge and teaching of English language. Colonial schemes like the Minute on Education of Macaulay and the Despatch of the Wood of 1854 were the basis of the organized education system in Madras Presidency that included the Erode region. Missionary organizations also did other roles in spreading education through the setting up of schools that taught literacy and modern subjects were also introduced to the education curriculum. Following the Indian independence in 1947, the Government of Tamil Nadu adopted several welfare oriented education policies such as the midday meal scheme, free textbooks, and the growth of the governmental schools and these measures have dramatically raised the number of students attending school, as well as the literacy rates in the district. The paper illustrates that the development of education was achieved as a complex process according to the colonial policy, the roles of the missionaries, social reform movements, and modern educational reforms that together changed the educational environment into a new one and led to the social and economic development of the region.