Evolution of Higher Learning in India Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The key gives Buddhist system of education.

Buddhist education centred on monasteries and universities such as Takshashila and Nalanda, where, besides religion and philosophy, subjects like medicine, mathematics, astronomy and the arts and crafts were taught, so it is described in textbooks of the history of education as giving technical and scientific education.

What could not be confirmed: the exact sentence was not found in a source. Vedic education also taught subjects such as astronomy, and Islamic education taught medicine and mathematics, so the question rests on the textbook comparison that the key follows.

Answer: A

The Commission recommended a minimum of 180 working days, excluding examination days.

The University Education Commission of 1948-49, chaired by Dr S. Radhakrishnan, recommended that universities and colleges should work for not less than 180 days in a year, exclusive of examination days. The aim was to make sure that enough teaching actually took place in an academic year.

200, 220 and 240 are larger round figures, but none of them is the minimum the 1948 Commission recommended.

Answer: A

The key gives Takshashila.

Takshashila (Taxila), in the north-west, is the most ancient of India's famous seats of learning, and the Jatakas describe students going there to learn the arts, including archery and military science, alongside medicine, law and the Vedas. Chandragupta Maurya is traditionally said to have been trained there under Chanakya.

Nalanda flourished much later, from the Gupta period, as a Buddhist monastic university, and Gunsheela and Kundinpur are not known as centres of military training.

Answer: B

Higher education centres were known as madrasas.

In the Mughal period, elementary education was given in maktabs attached to mosques, while madrasas were centres of higher learning teaching theology, law, philosophy, literature and sciences, often supported by the rulers.

Maktabs were for primary education, 'Arabi schools' is not the historical term, and 'Khajkais' is not a known institution.

Well-known madrasas of the period included those set up by rulers and nobles in cities such as Delhi, Agra and Fatehpur Sikri.

Answer: A

The usual division is Vedic period, Buddhist period, Muslim period, British period, Post-Independence period.

Histories of Indian education commonly trace it through the Vedic (Brahmanic) system of gurukuls, the Buddhist monastic universities such as Nalanda, the maktabs and madrasas of the medieval period, the colonial system after Macaulay and Wood's Despatch, and the developments after 1947.

The other options mix in categories (Ramayan and Mahabharat periods, a separate Jain period, Puranas period) that are not standard periods in the history of Indian education.

Answer: C

The madrasa was the centre of Higher Education.

In the medieval Muslim system of education, elementary education was given in the maktab, usually attached to a mosque, where children learnt reading, writing and the Quran. The madrasa provided higher learning in theology, law, literature, philosophy and the sciences.

Primary education belonged to the maktab, and secondary and technical education were not the defining role of the madrasa.

Answer: C

Lord Curzon organised the Simla Educational Conference.

In September 1901 Curzon called a conference of senior education officials at Simla to review the whole of Indian education. It led to the Indian Universities Commission of 1902, the Indian Universities Act of 1904 and the Government Resolution on Educational Policy of 1904.

The Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi meetings named in the other options were not the conference Curzon held.

Answer: A

The Sadler Commission inquired into the conditions and problems of the University of Calcutta.

Appointed in 1917 under Michael Sadler, the Calcutta University Commission was set up to study the University of Calcutta. Its report of 1919 ranged widely, recommending, for example, a 12-year school stage before university and separate boards for secondary education, and it influenced university reform across India.

Its remit, however, was the University of Calcutta, not all Indian universities, and not evaluation or curriculum as such.

Answer: D

The series is Shraman, Bhikkhu, Upadhyaya.

In the Buddhist monastic system, a young entrant was first admitted through the pabbajja ceremony as a shramana (novice). After years of training, the upasampada ceremony made him a full bhikkhu (monk). A bhikkhu of long standing and learning, traditionally after at least ten years, could serve as an upadhyaya, the preceptor who guided novices.

'Brahmachari' belongs to the Vedic ashrama system, and 'Pravin', 'Pandit' and 'Shravak' are not the Buddhist monastic stages in this order.

Answer: B

'Upanishad' literally means sitting near the Guru to learn.

The word is formed from upa (near), ni (down) and shad (to sit): sitting down near the teacher. It describes the pupil sitting close to the guru to receive the teaching, the setting in which these philosophical texts were transmitted.

The Upanishads are indeed the concluding parts of the Vedas, but that is what they are, not what the word means. Learning mantras by heart and stories of masters and disciples are not its literal meaning either.