Nai Talim, Basic Education
Gandhi's educational policies reflected Nai Talim ('Basic Education for all'), a spiritual principle which states that knowledge and work are not separate. It was a reaction against the British educational system and colonialism in general, which had the negative effect of making Indian children alienated and career-based; it promoted disdain for manual work, the development of a new elite class, and the increasing problems of industrialisation and urbanisation. The three pillars of Gandhi's pedagogy were its focus on the lifelong character of education, its social character and its form as a holistic process. For Gandhi, education is 'the moral development of the person', a process that is by definition 'lifelong'.
Nai Talim evolved out of the spiritually oriented education program at Tolstoy Farm in South Africa, and Gandhi's work at the ashram at Sevagram after 1937. After 1947 the Nehru government's vision of an industrialized, centrally planned economy had scant place for Gandhi's village-oriented approach.
Read more about this topic: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi In South Africa, Principles, Practices and Beliefs
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