Adult Education in India - Paperback

by Prasenjit Deb (Volume Editor), Asoke Bhattacharya (Volume Editor)

India has one of the largest populations in the world with around 1.4 billion people. It also has a rich culture dating back over 10,000 years. Recently, scholars around the globe are showing increased interest in India and Indian students are actively involved in premier institutions in every region.

Adult Education in India is a ready reckoner for students, scholars, practitioners, and all others interested in the history of the development of adult education since India's ancient period to the present day. This volume addresses the activities of different adult educators like Raja Rammohan Roy, Iswarchandra Vidyasagar, Rabindranath Tagore, Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar and many more, contextualizing how they acted and influenced the cause of global adult education.

In more recent decades, as India's economy has grown, and as the forces of industrialization, urbanization and globalization have become stronger in reshaping institutions; new ways of thinking about adult education have emerged. The idea of lifelong learning is now aligned to the requirements of the global knowledge economy. The focus on bare literacy is no longer considered sufficient, but only the first step towards preparing citizens to participate in the global market, to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable them to become enterprising and entrepreneurs. The logic of the market has become dominant.

Author Biography

Prasenjit Deb, Ph.D. (2002), North Bengal University, is Professor of Lifelong Learning at Kalyani University, West Bengal, India. He has published more than 80 research articles and 6 books.

Asoke Bhattacharya was the former Professor of Adult Education, Jadavpur University, West Bengal, India and presently the Visiting Professor of North Bengal University. He has published more than 20 books including Education for the People (Brill, 2010) and Paulo Freire (Brill, 2011).