WRITTEN STATEMENT RELATING TO THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
83, 627 (I) Method of recruitment.—The first question on which I have been asked to give my opinion is as regards the method of recruitment. I think that a high standard of scholarship should be the only qualification insisted on. Graduates of well-known Universities, distinguished for a particular line of study, should be given the preference. I think the prospects of the Indian Educational Service are sufficiently high to attract the very best material. In colonial Universities they manage to get very distinguished men without any extravagantly high pay. Possibly the present departmental method of election does not admit of sufficiently wide publicity of notice to attract the best candidates.
83, 628 (II) System of training and probation.—As regards probation and training, Educational officers should first win a reputation as good teachers before the appointment is confirmed as they are transferred to important colleges.
83, 629 (IV) Conditions of Salary.—As regards conditions of Salary, the pay should be moderately high, but not extravagant, and settled once for all under some simple and well-defined rules. It is not only very humiliating but degrading to a true scholar to be scrambling for money. The difference between the pay of the higher and lower services should be minimised.
83, 630 (VI) Conditions of pension.—With reference to pension, I think it is very unfair that more favourable terms are offered, when the pensioner elects to retire in England.
83, 631 (VII) Such limitations as exist in the employment of non-Europeans.—Passing on to the question of limitations that exist in the employment of Indians in the higher service, I should like to give expression to an injustice which is very keenly felt. It is unfortunate that Indian graduates of European Universities who have distinguished themselves in a remarkable manner do not for one reason or other find facilities for entering the higher Educational Service.
As teachers and workers it is an incontestable fact that Indian officers have distinguished themselves very highly, and anything which discriminates between Europeans and Indians in the way of pay and prospects is most undesirable. A sense of injustice is ill-calculated to bring about that harmony which is so necessary among all the members of an educational institution, professors and students alike.
83, 632 (VIII) Relations of the service with the Indian Civil Service and with other services.—As regards the relations with the Indian Civil Service, I am under the impression that they are somewhat strained, but of this I have no personal experience.
83, 633 (IX) Other points.—I have endeavoured to give my opinion on the definite questions which have been asked. There is another aspect of educational work in India which I think of the highest importance, though I am not exactly sure whether it falls within the terms of reference to the Royal Commission. I think that all the machinery to improve the higher education in India would be altogether ineffectual unless India enters the world movement for the advancement of knowledge. And for this it is absolutely necessary to touch the imagination of the people so as to rouse them to give their best energies to the work of research and discovery, in which all the nations of the world are now engaged. To aim at anything less will only end in a lifeless and mechanical system from which the soul of reality has passed away. On this subject I could have said much, but I will confine myself to one point which I think at the present juncture to be of importance. The Government of Bengal has been foremost in a tentative way in encouraging research. What is necessary is the extension and continuity of this enlightened policy.
83, 634. Supplementary Note.—I would like to add a few remarks to make the meaning of paragraphs 83, 627 and 83, 631 in my note more explicit.