Title: Elementary education in Bharat (that is India): insights from a postcolonial ethnographic study of a Gurukul

Authors: Ankur Joshi; Rajen K. Gupta

Addresses: WISDOM Office, Banasthali Vidyapith-304022 Banasthali, Distt. Tonk, Rajasthan, India ' B Block, MDI Gurgaon-122007 Gurgaon, Haryana, India

Abstract: The education delivered in Bharat¹ grapples with the issues of quality in terms of its content, pedagogy and the outcomes. The colonisation of education system subsequently led to the demise of traditional institutions (like Gurukul) of education delivery. Afterwards with the political independence, the government neither could work for the decolonisation of the education nor could it make significant efforts to revive or learn from the Gurukul system. However, a significant number of Gurukuls are still running in the country. This paper takes a post-colonial stance to the education and presents an ethnographic account of one such Gurukul. The propositions are presented based on this account for improvement in the quality of elementary education.

Keywords: culture; Gurukul; education; ethnography; post-colonialism; Bharat; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICBM.2017.085390

International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, 2017 Vol.15 No.1, pp.100 - 120

Received: 07 Mar 2016
Accepted: 09 Aug 2016
Published online: 25 Jul 2017 *

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