| Wood's Despatch | |
|---|---|
 Sir Charles Wood, G.C.B., 1st Viscount Halifax (1800-1885) | |
| Created | 1854 |
| Commissioned by | President of the Board of Control of India |
| Author(s) | Sir Charles Wood |
| Signatories | Adish |
| Media type | Communiqué |
| Subject | Education |
| Purpose | To hasten the development of education in British India |
Wood's dispatch is the informal name for a formal dispatch that was sent by Sir Charles Wood, the President of the Board of Control of the British East India Company to Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General of India. Wood's communique suggested a major shift to popularising the use of English within India. As for the language of instruction, Wood recommended that primary schools adopt vernacular languages, for secondary schools to adopt both English and vernacular languages and for colleges to adopt English.
The letter played an important role in spreading English-language learning and female education in British India. One of the most favourable steps taken was to create an English-speaking class among the Indian people to be used as a workforce in the company's administration. Vocational and women's education also became more heavily emphasised.[1]
This period of time in the British Raj was part of a final phase in which the British government administration brought social reforms to India. The governing policies later tended to become more reactionary, notably in the wake of major social and political unrest surrounding the Indian Rebellion of 1857.[2]
Background
The East India Company (EIC) largely ignored development of education in India until the mid-19th century. Some of its members thought that they should transform India into a civilsed society and convert the Indian mindset by making rapid changes. Others thought that it was best to educate Indians and recruit them in Indian Civil Services (ICS). By learning English, Indians would adopt British rule. Those were some of the reasons that the EIC wanted Indians to learn English. Lord Macaulay said, "We (Britishers) should try to create a class of people, who would work as translators between the people who we are ruling and us, even though they may look like Indians by color; but their likes and dislikes, morals and thinking will be like an Englishman".[1]
Recommendations
Wood's recommendations were the following:
- English-language education would enhance the moral character of Indians and thus supply the East India Company with civil servants who could be trusted.
- An education department should be set up in every province.
- Universities on the model of the University of London be established in large cities such as Bombay, Calcutta and Madras.
- At least one government school should be opened in every district.
- Affiliated private schools should be given grants in aid.
- Indian natives should be given training in their mother tongue as well.
- Provision should be made for a systematic method of education from the primary to the university levels.
- The government should support education for women.
- The medium of instruction at the primary level should be the vernacular but at the higher levels should be English.
- The training of teachers at all levels should be promoted and stressed.
Measures taken
After Wood's dispatch, several measures were taken by the East India Company:
- New institutions were set up like the University of Calcutta, the University of Bombay and the University of Madras in 1857, as well as the University of the Punjab in 1882 and the University of Allahabad in 1887.
- In all provinces, education departments were set up.
- English-language education was promoted within academics and the bureaucracies of companies and public services.
References
Sources
- Bayly, Christopher Alan (1987), Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. II.1, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-38650-0.