Indigenous Educational Institutions in Upper Gangetic Valley: Curriculum, Structure and Patronage

The indigenous educational institutions had their own history of evolution and had been known as the repositories of knowledge. There was a set structure and curriculum and they often thrived on the patronage given by the ruling class/elite/local magnate. However, their very existence was placed under challenge with the coming of the East India Company. The administrative compulsions of the company nevertheless negated their abolition. On the contrary, they were seen as means of producing administratively suitable section of baboos and pundits who would act as the agents of spreading of ‘enlightened western education’ to the ‘backward Indians’. The institutions underwent a metamorphosis with the intervention of British attempts of establishing institutions for the spread of Western ideas along with the retention of traditional knowledge.