What is the impact of the Swadeshi Movement on Education in India?

The partition of Bengal took the form of a movement during 1905 and ultimately it turned into the Swadeshi Movement which had its far-reaching impact almost on all sections of people.

The militant nationalists ardently believed in Swadeshi and zealously propagated it among the people. There was flowering of nationalist poetry, prose and journalism. Another constructive activity undertaken at the time was that of National Education which propagated a sense of pride in learning national traditions and culture in national languages.

In this field Rabindranath Tagore and Satish Mukherjee had played a great role. For propagating learning of Indian traditions and culture along with modern values and developments in own national languages, Tagore established a great education centre, named ‘Shanti Niketan’ and Mukherjee started ‘Dawn Society’.

In order to organize a national educational system, the necessity of constituting a National Council of Education was felt. This Council was established during a meeting held in Calcutta on November, 1905. On 14 August, 1906, National College and School of Bengal was established.

Aravindo Ghosh was its first Principal. For Technical and engineering study, an engineering college founded by the National Council of Education developed into the Jadavpur University after Independence. During this movement large numbers of schools were opened in different parts of the nation particularly in Bengal. Among them, schools established at Momen Singh, Faridpur and Bakargunj of Bengal were very famous because large number of Muslims and women were enrolled there. Numbers of the lower castes students was also impressive.

Rabindranath Tagore, Rajani Kant Sen and Mukunda Das composed patriotic songs which are even sung in Bengal to this day. In the field of arts Rabindranath Tagore and Nandlal Bose were very famous and contributed greatly, Jagdish Chandra Bose and Roy were main contributions in the field of science education. So, last but not the least we can say that the impact of Swadeshi Movement on education in India was very constructive.