KOTHARI

COMMISSION.
*Introduction;
National Education Commission (1964-66) was established on July 14,1964 under the
chairmanship of Dr. Daulat Singh Kothari, that is why it is also called Kothari
Commission. This commission submitted its report on June 29,1966, it has 17 members and
headquarters in New Delhi. This commission was set up by the government to examine all
aspects of of educational sector in India, to evolve a general pattern of education and to
advise guidelines and policies for the development of education in India. However, the
medical and legal studies were excluded from the purview of the commission.

*Structure;
The commission was formed under chairmanship of D. S. Kothari, was the 6th commission
after independence. It was composed of 17 members including secretary and associate
secretary. Apart from the core group, the commission had a panel of overseas 20 consultants
and 19 task forces mainly 12 and 7 working groups.

*Core Group;

No. Designation Name Position

1 Chairman D. S. Kothari Chairman, University Grants Commission

Head, Dept of Edu. Planning, Admn and

Member
2 J. P. Naik Finance Gokhale Institute of Politics and
Secretary
Economics, Pune
No. Designation Name Position

Associate J. F. Assistant Director, Department of School and

3
Secretary McDougall Higher Education, UNESCO, Paris

Director, Extension Programmes for

4 Member A. R. Dawood
Secondary Education, New Delhi

Director, Institute of Education, University

5 Member H. L. Elvin
College of London

R. A. Director, Institute of Applied Manpower

6 Member
Gopalaswami Research, New Delhi

Director of the Commonwealth Education

7 Member V. S. Jha
Liaison Unit, London

Educational Adviser to the Government of

8 Member P. N. Kirpal
India

Professor, Economics and Public

9 Member M. V. Mathur
Administration, University of Rajasthan

Director, Indian Agricultural Research

10 Member B. P. Pal
Institute, New Delhi

Kum. S. Head of the Department of

11 Member
Panandikar Education, Karnataka University, Dharwad

Dean of Research, University of California,

12 Member Roger Revelle
USA
 No. Designation Name Position

K. G. Educational Adviser to the Government of

13 Member
Saiyidain India

14 Member T. Sen Rector, Jadavpur University, Calcutta

Inspector General of Education, France, and

15 Member Jean Thomas formerly Assistant Director-General
of UNESCO

Director, Methodological Division, Ministry

S. A.
16 Member of Higher and Special Secondary
Shumovsky
Education, RSFSR, Moscow

Sadatoshi Professor of the First Faculty of Science and

17 Member
Ihara Technology, Waseda University, Tokyo

*Task Forces;
(1)Adult Education
The group's main objective was the eradication of illiteracy by focusing on adult education.
The group was composed of three foreign members, J. F. McDougall, Welthy Fischer and
Hans Simons and fifteen Indian members, V. S. Jha, Abdul Qadir, G. K. Chandiramani, A.
R. Deshpande, Durgabai Deshmukh, K. L. Joshi, D. R. Kalia, T. A. Koshy, M. S. Mehra,
A. R. Moore, J. P. Naik, M. S. Randhawa, K. G. Saiyidain, Sohan Singh and group
secretary, S. M. S. Chari.
(2)Agriculture Education
The group had 15 members of which two were foreign members, J. F. McDougall and R. W.
Cummings. The Indian members included B. P. Pal, Hashim Amir Ali, Anant Rao,
Chintamani Singh, V. M. Dandekar, K. C. Kanungo, A. B. Joshi, S. N. Mehrotra, S. K.
Mukherji, J. P. Naik, K. C. Naik, N. K. Panikar, C. S. Ranganathan, S. C. Verma and
secretary, S. Ramanujam. The group focused on the development of agricultural education.
(3)Educational Administration
This twelve member group examined the shortcomings on the educational administration
and had Prem Kirpal, A. C. Deve Gowda, V. Jagannadham, M. V. Mathur, S. N.
Mukherjee, J. P. Naik, H. M. Patel, D. M. Sen, J. D. Sharma, V. D. Sharma, Rudra Dutt
Singh and S. Rajan (secretary) as its members.
(4)Educational Finance
The task before the group was to examine the existing set up with regard to educational
finance and identify ways to overcome the shortfalls. The group had M. V. Mathur, D. A.
Dabholkar, B. Dutta, R. A. Gopalaswami, K. L. Joshi, D. T. Lakdawala, Gautam
Mathur, Atmanand Misra, Sadashiv Misra, J. P. Naik, K. A. Naqvi, Pritam Singh and
Gurbax Singh (secretary) as its members.
(5)Higher Education
The group's objective was to coordinate the higher education system in India and advise on
ways of improvement. The group was one of the largest and had 20 members, including
three overseas members, J. F. McDougall, Hans Simons and H. J. Taylor. The Indian
members were K. G. Saiyidain, J. W. Airan, P. K. Bose, Chandrahasan, V. S. Jha, A. C.
Joshi, K. L. Joshi, C. L. Kapur, D. S. Kothari, M. V. Mathur, P. G. Mavlankar, J. P.
Naik, P. J. Philip, A. B. Shah, Amrik Singh, R. K. Singh and S. Rehman (secretary).
(6)Manpower
The group had twelve members which included R. A. Gopalaswami, Abdul Qadir, K. L.
Joshi, M. V. Mathur, J. P. Naik, R. Prasad, T. Sen and S. P. Aggarwal. The group had its
mandate to examine the recruitment and training of teaching and non teaching staff.
(7)Techniques and Methods in Education
This seventeen member task force was entrusted with the designing of the functional
mechanics of the educational system. The members were V. S. Jha, G. K. Athalye (later
replaced by S. L. Ahluwallia), M. L. Bharadwaj, A. R. Dawood, S. Dutt, C. L. Kapur, S.
S. Kulkarni, J. C. Mathur, J. F. McDougall, S. K. Mitra, J. P. Naik, Paul Neurath, S.
Panandikar, Albert J. Perrelli, S. Rehman, J. M. Ure (later replaced by D. A. Smith) and S.
M. S. Chari, who served as the Secretary.
(8)Technical Education
The group trained its focus on the professional and vocational courses. The group had
sixteen members including the associate secretary, J. F. McDougall. The other members were
T. Sen, S. K. Bose, G. K. Chandiramani, L. S. Chandrakant, D. R. Dhingra, R. N. Dogra,
V. G. Garde, R. A. Gopalaswami, K. L. Joshi, P. K. Kelkar, S. G. Pendse, S. C. Sen, R. K.
Srivastav, H. C. Visvesvaraya and secretary, S. Venkatesh.
(9)Science Education
The mandate of the group was to focus on the science education excluding medical
education and consisted of D. S. Kothari, S. Deb, B. D. Jain, P. Florence Nightingale, R.
C. Paul, R. N. Rai, T. S. Sadasivan, D. Shankernarayan, Shantinarayan, A. R. Verma, R.
D. Deshpande and I. C. Menon (secretary).
(10)School Education
The group worked on the modalities of school education excluding primary education in
India. It consisted of twelve members including the commission secretary, J. P. Naik along
with A. R. Dawood, K. L. Gupta, G. S. Khair, K. Kuruvila Jacob, D. R. Mankad, P. N.
Mathar, R. Muralidharan, S. Panandikar, H. Radhakrishna, S. N. Saraf, and S.
Doraiswami (secretary).
(11)Student Welfare
The welfare aspects of the students including scholarships and other measures of incentives
were attended to by this group which had A. R. Dawood, V. S. Jha, D. R. Mankad, M. S.
Mehta, Perin H. Mehta, J. P. Naik, Prem Pasricha, V. Ramakrishna, A. S. Raturi, D. S.
Reddy, S. L. Saruparia, Vikram Singh and S. Doraiswami (secretary) as its members.
(12)Teacher Education and Teacher Status
The group inspected the proficiency of the teachers and their remuneration packages. One of
the tasks before the group was to standardize the public and private sector compensation
packages and also to design a machinery for continuous on-job training of the teachers. The
members of the group were S. Panandikar, S. P. Aggarwal, Reginald Bell, A. C. Deve
Gowda, G. N. Kaul, J. P. Naik, S. Natarajan, K. G. Saiyidain, Salamatullah and M. D.
Paul (secretary).

*Working Groups;
(1)Educational Buildings
This group had its focus on the educational infrastructure and had several construction and
infrastructure experts among its fifteen members. The members were A. R. Dawood, R. K.
Chhabra, Dinesh Mohan, B. V. Doshi, J. F. McDougall, M. M. Mistri, J. P. Naik, M. H.
Pandya, C. B. Patel, S. Rahaman, J. L. Sehgal, T. S. Vedagiri, H. C. Visvesaraya, H.
Williams and S. Venkatesh (secretary).
(2)Education of the Backward Classes
The group had fifteen members and was mandated to focus on the education of
the scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and other backward communities in India. L. M.
Shrikant, Sashimeren Aier, N. V. Bapat, S. R. Bhise, P. D. Kulkarani, J. Lakra, D. J.
Naik, J. P. Naik, V. Rajlakshmi, T. Sanganna, S. C. Sen Gupta, Manikya Lal Verma,
Vimal Chandra, N. M. Wadiwa and the secretary of the group, Gurbax Singh were the
members.
(3)Educational Statistics
The group provided the statistical tools for the commission and had J. P. Naik, S. P.
Aggarwal, R. K. Chhabra, G. P. Khare, D. Natarajan, H. Webster and Gurbax Singh
(secretary) as members.
(4)Pre-Primary Education
This group was intended to work on the primary education and its standardization as the
primary education till that time was unorganized with several different schools such as
basic primary and Montessori systems in practice. The group had ten women, S.
Panandikar, Bilquis Ghufran, L. Jesudian, Shalini Moghe, A. Pakrashi, Grace Tucker, P.
K. Varalakshmi, Amrita Varma and R. Muralidharan and two men, M. C. Nanavatty and
Shesh Namle as members.
(5)School Community Relations
The group composed of L. R. Desai, Hulbe, V. S. Jha, H. B. Majumder, P. N. Mathur, J. P.
Naik, M. C. Nanavatty, H. Radhakrishna, K. G. Saiyidain, R. K. Singh and M. P.
Balakrishnan (secretary) worked on the extra curricular ambience and activities of the
education.
(6)School Curriculum
This group had one of the major tasks of the commission which included the design and
development of a standardized curriculum to be used across the country. S. Panandikar, J.
P. Naik, A. R. Dawood, L. S. Chandrakant, A. J. Perrelli and B. Ghosh (secretary) were the
members.
(7)Women's Education
The group, consisting the chairman, D. S. Kothari and the commission secretary, J. P. Naik,
had Durgabai Deshmukh, Rajammal Devadas, P. N. Mathur, S. Panandikar, K. G.
Saiyidain, Raksha Saran, Premlila V. Thackersey and S. Rajan (Secretary) as members.

*Needs and Objectives;

The need of Kothari Commission was felt after observing some defects in the existing
education system of the country. The education system was not emphasising on character
formation, moral and spiritual development and was not connected with idea of national
reconstruction. It had very less importance of culture.
Objectives of this commission were as follows;
(1) Do research to improve the quality of the Indian education system and provide
suggestions to the government for its improvement.
(2) To help the government in the formulation of educational policies, so that the level of
education can be increased.
(3) Implement Indian education equally in every province and to present suggestions to
make education level equal, bring uniformity in the Indian education.
(4) Highlight the shortcomings of Indian education and find reasons for those shortcomings.

*Recommendations;
(a)Regarding structure of education;
. Pre-primary education- 1 to 3 years.
. Lower primary education- 4 to 5 years.
. Upper primary education- up to duration of 4 years.
. Secondary education- 2 years.
. Higher secondary education- 2 years.
. Undergraduate education- up to 3 years.
. Masters education- 2 to 3 years.
. Research education- 2 or 3 years.
(b) Regarding administration;
. To appoint teachers with experience.
. To arrange promotions and transfers of teachers.
. Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) should be given more powers.
. Education policy should be made by giving national importance to education.
. Only qualified and experienced person should be appointed on responsible posts of
education.
(c) Regarding syllabus;
. At primary level, focus should be given on mother tongue and environment of primary
education.
. A single core-curriculum in entire nation and vocational education should be according to
the needs of society
. The commission has divided the syllabus on four bases according to the levels of education.
(d) Regarding finance;
. The central government should invest 6% of its income on education.
. Education should be made vocational so that the exchequer can be increased.
. State government should invest more of their income in education.
. Gram panchayats should also make financial investment to improve education in rural
areas.
(e) Regarding evaluation;
. There should be a system of internal assessment at primary level.
. A public examination at he end of class 10th should be conducted under the supervision of
the board of education.
. Grade system should be adopted instead of marks.
. Oral examination should be encouraged at the secondary level.
(f) Regarding university;
. All the universities of India should be made members of the ‘Antavividyalaya’ council.
. 1/3rd members of the UGC should be representatives of the universities.
. More institutions should be established in the center.
. Universities should be established only when necessary.
. It is mandatory to take permission of UGC for the establishment of a new university.

*Merits;
(a) Backward children and under achievers should be identified and remedial programmes
should be identified and remedial programmes should be organized for them.
(b) Provides part time jobs for adults and corresponding courses.
(c) Importance of handicapped students.
(d) Provide strict and single education all over

*Demerits;
(a) The commission points out the educational goals but doesn’t adequately tell us how to
reach them.
(b) The planning towards back ground people creates economic problems.

*Conclusion;
According to the Kothari Commission, education should be linked with the idea of National
reconstruction. The Kothari Commission has a very important contribution in the field of
education, through this the Indian education system has been made more strong and
effective. It has started a new era in the field of education.
The entire work of increasing the budget of education has been completed only through the
Kothari Commission. It has made a valuable contribution to the field of education.

THANK YOU.