Pre-Macaulay Models of Teaching

The old Indian method of education works but is it scalable?

- Devdutt Pattanaik

Today, anyone can go to a school or an institute, where a set of subjects are taught by experts who follow a fixed timetable, an approved curriculum, a standardised method of teaching and evaluation. That was not the case before.

In the old Indian model, your caste determined what you could study. If you belonged to a Brahmin community, you could learn priestly rituals. The potter's son would learn pottery by working in the father's workshop. Knowledge existed within the family, within the community, that had to be transmitted only within the group, not to outsiders. This is how tribal knowledge is transmitted to the tribe, via parents and elders, through ceremonies, stories, and apprenticeship.