MPSC 2024 Prelims Paper-I · Question 9 of 100

Correct — option (1), 'Only (a) and (b)'. This question prints only three statements, (a) to (c), so the whole item turns on a single number. Statement (a) is right: the National Policy on Education of 1968, drawing on the Education Commission of 1964–66 under Dr. D. S. Kothari, restated the goal of free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of fourteen, which was the directive already written into Article 45 of the Constitution and which the policy treated as the country's first educational obligation. Statement (b) is right as well: the 1968 policy is explicit that of all the factors determining the quality of education the teacher matters most, and it accordingly called for teachers to be given an honoured place in society and for their emoluments and service conditions to be made adequate — the 'higher position and improved pay' of the printed statement. Statement (c) is where the question is decided. The Kothari Commission's celebrated financial recommendation was that investment in education should be raised to six per cent of national income, a target it set for the mid-1980s and which the 1968 policy adopted; the figure printed here, ten per cent, is not the recommendation and never has been. Since (c) is false, every option containing it goes, and only option (1) is left. The six per cent figure is worth fixing in memory because it has outlived the policy that first carried it: it was restated in the National Policy on Education of 1986 and again in the National Education Policy of 2020, and it remains the standard benchmark against which India's actual public spending on education is measured.

• (2)Only (b) and (c) — This option accepts the false ten-per-cent figure in statement (c) and, worse, rejects statement (a), the free and compulsory education of children up to fourteen. That commitment is the constitutional heart of the 1968 policy — Article 45 of the Directive Principles set it as a goal to be reached within ten years of the Constitution's commencement, and the policy of 1968 restated it because it had not been achieved. Dropping it while keeping a misquoted spending target inverts the relative importance of the two propositions.
• (3)Only (a) and (c) — This option keeps the false ten-per-cent figure and discards statement (b), the improvement of teachers' status and pay. The teacher clause is one of the most-quoted parts of the 1968 policy, which held that no education system can rise above the quality of its teachers and therefore linked national development to their emoluments and service conditions. A candidate choosing this option has probably remembered that the Kothari report named a percentage of national income without remembering which percentage, and has then paired that half-memory with the one statement everyone recalls.
• (4)All of the above — 'All of the above' can only be right if every printed statement is true, and here statement (c) is not: the recommended level of investment was six per cent of national income, not ten. This option is the natural landing place for a candidate who recognises that the policy did commit to free and compulsory education, did promise better treatment for teachers, and did name a spending target, and who therefore accepts the third statement on the strength of the first two. In statement-set questions the presence of a single wrong figure is enough to remove an otherwise attractive omnibus option.

The Education Commission of 1964–66, universally called the Kothari Commission after its chairman Dr. D. S. Kothari, then chairman of the University Grants Commission, was the first body to review Indian education as a whole from the primary school to the university. Its report, Education and National Development, opened with the sentence that 'the destiny of India is now being shaped in her classrooms', and its recommendations included a common school system to reduce social segregation, the 10+2+3 pattern of school and college education, the three-language formula, work experience and social service in the curriculum, and the raising of public investment in education to six per cent of national income. The National Policy on Education of 1968 was the government's formal response, and it is India's first national education policy — which is why the pair 'Kothari Commission and NEP 1968' is examined as a unit, the commission supplying the reasoning and the policy the commitment.

MPSC and other commissions like education-policy questions because the documents are short, official and full of numbers, and numbers make clean single-answer items. The examinable numbers in this area are few and recur constantly: six per cent of national income for investment in education, age fourteen for free and compulsory schooling, the 10+2+3 structure, the three-language formula, and later the ages six to fourteen written into Article 21A by the Eighty-sixth Amendment of 2002 and given effect by the Right to Education Act of 2009. Because a statement set of this kind usually plants its error in the numeral rather than in the idea, the productive reading habit is to check the figure first and the sentiment second. The Kothari Commission also supplies the vocabulary for later questions on school structure, since the 10+2+3 pattern it recommended is the direct ancestor of the 5+3+3+4 structure proposed in 2020, and a commission that has asked about one will ask about the other.

• The Education Commission of 1964–66 was chaired by Dr. D. S. Kothari and its report was titled Education and National Development; the National Policy on Education of 1968 was based on its recommendations.
• The Kothari Commission recommended that investment in education be raised to six per cent of national income — not ten per cent — and the 1968 policy adopted that target.
• The 1968 policy restated the goal of free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of fourteen, which Article 45 of the Constitution had set as a Directive Principle.
• The policy held the teacher to be the most important factor in the quality of education and called for an honoured social position and adequate emoluments and service conditions for teachers.
• The six per cent of national income benchmark was repeated in the National Policy on Education of 1986 and again in the National Education Policy of 2020.

• Remembering that a percentage of national income was recommended but not which one; the figure is six per cent and a misprinted ten per cent is the standard trap
• Selecting an omnibus 'all of the above' option because most of the statements are familiar, when a single false figure removes it
• Confusing the age limit of fourteen in Article 45 and the 1968 policy with the age band of six to fourteen introduced by Article 21A in 2002

Education-policy questions in MPSC papers are usually built as statement sets in which two propositions restate the policy accurately and one alters a number — a percentage, an age, a year, a structural pattern. The commission rarely asks for the whole content of a policy, so the efficient preparation is a short numerical sheet per document rather than a summary: for the Kothari Commission and NEP 1968 that means six per cent, age fourteen, 10+2+3 and the three-language formula. Expect the same construction with NEP 2020's 5+3+3+4 structure and its own restatement of the six per cent target.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Education Commission of 1964–66, whose report formed the basis of the National Policy on Education of 1968, was chaired by which of the following ?

  • (a)Dr. S. Radhakrishnan
  • (b)Dr. D. S. Kothari
  • (c)Dr. A. Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar
  • (d)Prof. Yash Pal

  Answer(b) Dr. D. S. Kothari — then chairman of the University Grants Commission, he chaired the Education Commission of 1964–66 whose report was titled Education and National Development. Radhakrishnan chaired the University Education Commission of 1948–49 and Mudaliar the Secondary Education Commission of 1952–53.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The level of investment in education recommended by the Kothari Commission and adopted by successive national education policies is which of the following ?

  • (a)Three per cent of national income
  • (b)Six per cent of national income
  • (c)Ten per cent of national income
  • (d)Twelve per cent of national income

  Answer(b) Six per cent of national income — the Kothari Commission set this target for the mid-1980s, the National Policy on Education of 1968 adopted it, and it was restated in the 1986 policy and again in the National Education Policy of 2020, which is why it remains the standard benchmark for public spending on education.