In Search of Our Nationalist Roots For A Philosophy Of Education (Papers read at a seminar held at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Kolkata, India, on 12 April 2003)

Preface

An introspection concerning our educational system creates a feeling that the enduring philosophical ideas passed on by our eminent thinkers call for a careful review. Re-linking ourselves with this valuable legacy will give us the sense of direction in moulding our educational outlook. The Institute arranged a day-long national seminar on 12 April 2003, on the subject of 'In Search of Our Nationalist Roots for a Philosophy of Education', in which eight distinguished scholars from different parts of India participated. Every scholar presented a paper which was followed by a discussion by a panel of experts. Thus there was meaningful exchanges of views.

The seminar was inaugurated by Professor Debi Prasad Chattopadhyay, Chairman, Centre for Studies in Civilization, Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture, New Delhi. In the final and open session of the seminar, the proceedings of the academic sessions were summed-up by the respective coordinators., this was followed by a question-and-answer session. This helped to clarify the subject further to the people. MM Govinda Gopal Mukhopadhyaya presented the concluding observations on the proceeding of the academic sessions.

We are grateful to the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, for its active support and financial assistance to the Institute for the seminar.

This volume contains the papers presented by the participants in the seminar, along with the salient portions of the question-and -answer sessions that followed. We are thankful to Professor Radharaman Chakrabarti, Professor Anjali Mookerjee for Editing the Proceedings.

We are saddened at the passing away of Professor Sankari Prasad Banerjee, Professor Sisir Kumar Das and Professor Satindranath Chakraborti, who were the participating Scholars in the seminar. We share the grief and offer our condolence to their bereaved families.

We hope this brief study on philosophy of education will evoke further interest among the scholars for more investigations on the subject.