Modern Period (AD 1700-AD 1947)
The modern education system started with the arrival of Christian missionaries in the country. The Christians came to India to establish trade relations with the country. Later on, they became the rulers of the country and started the modern education system. The credit of education of modern India lies with the Christian missionaries.
Before the arrival of the British, Christian European missionaries and Danish missionaries started the basic work to provide teacher training courses in the country. The Danish missionaries started a school at Tranquebar in Tamil Nadu to train teachers in 1716. The teachers passing out from this school were appointed as teachers in primary schools. Danish missionaries started another school in Serampore in West Bengal in 1793. Both these institutions took an interest in providing training programmes to teachers.
These institutions followed a monitorial system (or the pupil-teacher method of training) to design the teacher training programmes which were later accepted as the adoption method to appoint presidencies under British rule. This system was known to be the ‘Bell-Lancaster System’ named after Andrew Bell, Superintendent of Schools, established by the British government. His thoughts and ideas were implemented in teacher education programmes.
Later on, educational societies came into existence at major places like Bombay, Madras and Calcutta and one teacher training institution was also set. The annual report of presidencies says the agencies like Calcutta School Society (Calcutta Presidency), Madras School Society (Madras Presidency) and Native Education
Society (Bombay Presidency) played remarkable role to train teachers. The Native Education Society of Bombay formed in 1815 provided training to twenty-four teachers and were sent to different parts of the country as ‘organizers’ to improve the quality of teaching at elementary level.
Similarly, Calcutta School Society formed in 1849, made a remarkable contribution to train teachers of elementary level. This was appreciated by East India Company by providing a grant of 500 per month to encourage the contributions of Calcutta School Society. Efforts were taken by Calcutta School society to train women teachers of the province. Later, more training centers were set up. Similarly, the then Governor of Madras, Sir Thomas Munro, sanctioned a grant to Madras School Society to train teachers under his province. This job was successfully completed by the Madras School Society.
During the early periods of the British rule, enormous formal schools came into existence and the need for teacher training was drastically felt. Lord Macaulay’s Minute of 1815 on judicial administration of the presidency of Fort William recommended the need of teacher training, which is considered as the first document to recognize the need for teacher training in the British period. As a result, many schools were set up in different parts of the country like Surat, Pune and Calcutta. To train teachers, a number of teacher training centers were also set up in places like Meerut, Madras and Agra and by 1824, twenty-six teacher training centers were opened at different corners of the province. From 1815 to 1854, the demand of teacher training considerably increased and it was reflected in the policy making process of different provinces.
In 1826, Sir Thomas Munro had initiated steps to establish teacher training schools in every collectorate (district headquarters of the government) known as principal schools. By this suggestion, he expected that there will be continuous training of teachers and the shortage of teachers can be solved to a large extent. He also expected that there would be one principal school for 300 tehsils under his presidency. Similar steps were adopted by different rulers. The secretary of Bombay in 1845 opened a normal class in Elphistone institution. This was opened for fourty primary teachers which included fifteen Marathi, fifteen Gujarati and ten Kanarese.
Training for three years was provided to these groups. The Poona Sanskrit College and Poona English Schools were merged in 1851 to develop Poona College to provide training to teachers. Training in teaching methods, psychological strategies and other pedagogical methods were conducted at this college. At the same time, the English School at Surat opened a normal class to train Gujarati teachers. The main aim of these institutions was to train teachers at various levels and to equip them as future teachers useful for the state.