Wood's Dispatch

The most important part of the development of education in 19th century, especially English education, was the guidelines prepared by Charles Wood, the Secretary of State, in 1854, popularly known as the Wood’s Dispatch.

This comprehensive scheme dominated education policy in the second half of the 19th century. It firmly put the European model on the map of Indian education.

Its essential features:

  • It declared the aim of education in India to be diffusion of European knowledge.
  • For higher education, English would be the preferred medium of instruction while the vernacular languages would be the medium through which European knowledge could infilter to the masses.
  • It proposed a hierarchy of schools, i.e. vernacular primary schools at the village level, followed by Anglo-Vernacular high schools and an affiliated college at the district level.
  • This Dispatch recommended grants-in-aid for the first time to encourage private efforts in the field of education.
  • It proposed to set up a Department of Public Instruction to be headed by a Director, one in each of the five provinces under the British rule. This Department would review the progress of education in the particular province. The Department of Public Instruction was established in 1855 and replaced the Committee of Public Instruction and Council of Education.
  • It proposed to set up universities at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras on the model of London University which would hold examinations and confer degrees. The universities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras were established in 1857.
  • Apart from the formal education, the Dispatch underlined the importance of vocational education and emphasized the need to set up technical schools and colleges.
  • It also recommended setting up of training institutes for prospective teachers.
  • It also supported education for women. Many modern girls’ schools were set up subsequently and also received government’s grants-in-aid.