The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c5.s29.3

c5.s29.3

2. It is remarked by the Board of Revenue, that of a population of 12½ millions, there are only 188,000, or 1 in 67 receiving education. This is true of the whole population, but not as regards the male part of it, of which the proportion educated is much greater than is here estimated: for if we take the whole population as stated in the report at 12,850,000, and deduct one half for females, the remaining male population will be 6,425,000; and if we reckon the male population between the ages of five and ten years, which is the period which boys in general remain at school, at one-ninth, it will give 713,000, which is the number of boys that would be at school if all the males above ten years of age were educated; but the number actually attending the schools is only 184,110, or little more than one-fourth of that number. I have taken the interval between five and ten years of age as the term of education, because, though many boys continue at school till twelve or fourteen, many leave it under ten. I am, however, inclined to estimate the portion of the male population who receive school education to be nearer to one-third than one-fourth of the whole, because we have no returns from the provinces of the numbers taught at home. In Madras that number taught at home is 26,963, or about five times greater than that taught in the schools. There is probably some error in this number, and though the number privately taught in the provinces does certainly not approach this rate, it is no doubt considerable, because the practice of boys being taught at home by their relations or private teachers is not infrequent in any part of the country. The proportion educated is very different in different classes; in some it is nearly the whole; in others it is hardly one-tenth.