In the 20th century the population of India was rising fast. With it was the demand for education and the need to extend that opportunity to the half that were female. This stamp shows an Indian girl happily reading but it is easier to print a stamp than it is to educate a country. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
A stamp from a country in it’s first decade of independence shows a lot of optimism. There is really a belief that without the shackles of colonialism, problems can be quickly dealt with. What is not realized was that the former colonial masters were dealing with the same problems and if they had not solved it with their ample resources, it was going to be a big challenge for the country on it’s own. 60 years after this stamp and 70 years after independence, Indian female literacy is still less than two thirds of the population.
Todays stamp is issue A121, a 15 Naye Paise (no more Annas for India) stamp issued on November 14th 1957. It was a 3 stamp issue in various denominations celebrating children’s day. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents used.
Traditional precolonial education in India was carried out by a community funded gurukul system. One imagines much of what was taught was spiritual but the system was ineffective at achieving literacy. in 1872 the literacy rate was barely 3 percent. In the last 75 years of British rule over 100,000 English language schools were opened and over 10 million students were enrolled. Literacy was up to 16 percent though the numbers were much lower than that for girls and those outside the big cities.
In 1944, the British proposed an educational reform based on a commission of British experts, the Sargent Report. It proposed mandatory English education for children of both sexes from age 6-11. After that there would be a division of the students between academic and vocational training. The stated goal was for India to achieve full literacy by 1984. The plan was labled a scheme and scoffed at by India’s independence movement as taking far too long to achieve full literacy. After independence however the plan was modified to include mandatory education out to age fourteen, but otherwise implemented.
100 percent literacy is an elusive goal. At the time of this stamp in 1957, female literacy was less than 15 percent. This seemingly slow progress does not mean the government wasn’t trying. Population was rising fast and that means a young population that puts a big burden on the educational system. The colonial authority was adept at putting out grand future plans. There often however was not the resources allocated. Indian literacy is far higher than in Pakistan another part of former British India, but far lower than China, a country that faced similar issues.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the participants of the 1944 Sargent Commission. For both providing a roadmap and showing to lazy critics that it is easier to take easy swipes than it is to do things better. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.