UPSC Prelims 2018 Question:

Regarding Wood's Dispatch, which of the following statements are true?

1. Grants-in-Aid system was introduced.
2. Establishment of universities was recommended.
3. English as a medium of instruction at all levels of education was recommended.
   
   

Select the correct answer using the code given below:

Explanation:

• In 1854, the Court of Directors of the East India Company in London sent an educational despatch to the Governor-General in India. Issued by Charles Wood, the President of the Board of Control of the Company,it has come to be known as Wood’s Despatch. Outlining the educational policy that was to be followed in India, it emphasised once again the practical benefits of a system of European learning, as opposed to Oriental knowledge.
  
  
• It is considered the "Magna Carta of English Education in India". this document was the first comprehensive plan for the spread of education in India.
  
  

•  It asked the Government of India to assume responsibility for education of the masses, thus repudiating the 'downward filtration theory', at least on paper.
  
  
•  It recommended a system of grants-in-aid to encourage private enterprise. So statement 1 is correct.
  
  
•  It laid stress on female and vocational, education, and on teachers' training.
  
  
•  It laid down that the education imparted in government institutions should be secular.
  
  
• The Despatch recommended the establishment of universities in the three Presidency towns of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. The universities were to be modeled after the London University and these were to have a senate comprising of a Chancellor, a Vice-Chancellor, and fellows who were nominated by the Government. So, statement 2 is correct.
  
  
•  It systematised the hierarchy from vernacular primary schools in villages at bottom, followed by Anglo-Vernacular High Schools and an affiliated college at the district level.
  
  
•   It recommended English as the medium of instruction for higher studies and vernaculars at school level. So, statement 3 is not correct.
  
  

Therefore, option (1) is the correct answer.

Subject: History | Development of Education