The Gandhian Model of Education: Relevance for Educational Psychology

Abstract

The founding motto of Ohlange High school, the first school started by a black person in South Africa in 1901, “to teach the hand to work, the brain to understand and the heart to serve” could as well have described not only Phoenix Farm but also Gandhi’s philosophy of education. Gandhi formalized this motto through an ingeniously devised system of education, which he named “Nai Talim” (New Education) and “Buniyadi Shiksha” (Basic Education). Chapter 2 starts by pointing out how the UNESCO has taken up Gandhi’s ideas on education for forging its strategy for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of its Agenda 2030. Of special significance is that while educational systems, the world over, are laying stress upon socio-emotional development and character building of the child, societal values are undergoing a rapid erosion, bringing violence and crime in its wake. The present chapter focuses on recent research and theory in the domain of character building and then delves into the underlying principles, pedagogy and curriculum of Nai Talim, to show how education can go far beyond the mere providing of knowledge and can aid, not only, the all-round development of the child but also the inculcating of an appropriate value system, accompanied with a dignity of labor and respect for humanity at large. The ingenious ways through which Gandhi blended the Socratic and Confucian systems of teaching and aided conceptual knowledge in the child through handicraft are revolutionary, to say the least. The second part of the chapter describes in detail one such school which is following the curriculum of Nai Talim and deriving the advantages of the same vis-à-vis those accruing from the modern philosophy of education and educational psychology, in an effort to showcase the wisdom of the Gandhian educational model and to enrich educational pedagogy and curriculum of schools for the twenty-first century.