Malcolm Adiseshiah - Educationalist

Educationalist

His early teaching career, his Vice Chancellorship of the Madras University and his various activities in his entire life had their focal point in education. A major part of his UNESCO service was spent in formulating educational programmes for the developing world.

The General Conference of UNESCO in its fifteenth session authorized the publication of a work designed to clarify the basic concepts concerning the contribution of education, science and culture to development. In the course of the discussions about the resolution, reference was made to the many speeches of Adiseshiah on related themes delivered in Oxford, United Kingdom in 1961; Cambridge, UK and Tananarive, Madagascar in 1962; Madras, India in 1963; Toronto, Canada in 1964; Washington, DC, USA in 1968 and many others. He was requested to write a book based on the facts and ideas presented in those speeches About that book, U Thant, then Secretary-General of the United Nations, in his ‘Foreword’ writes:

That was the respect which he commanded in UN as an educationalist of eminence.

He undertook a survey of the school education in Tamil Nadu in the late 1970s and published an influential report. His contributions to the growth dynamics of education are numerous. These include the devising of the curricula for primary and secondary education, vocationalisation, preparation of teaching material, introduction of science and technology at appropriate levels, preparation of syllabi for collegiate education, examination reform, giving a new thrust to the quality, content, direction and methodology of social science research, compilation and analysis of educational data and financing of education.

He was instrumental in the setting up of the Asian Social Science Research Council, New Delhi and was its first President. He was a member of the Central Advisory Board of Education, the Indian National Commission for Co-operation with UNESCO, the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and the National Council of Teacher Education. The ICSSR requested him to undertake a review of its work and to suggest the lines along which it should develop. His meticulously compiled two volume report, one on retrospect and the other on prospect, which had been an influential guide in the development of social science of research in India at that period.

He was the Chairman of the panel which reviewed the functioning of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). Andhra University entrusted to him the review of the working of the social science departments at Waltair. He chaired the committee set up to recommend the establishment of Mother Teresa Women's University in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu.