SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 17 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 7 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

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SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Which of the following pairs (Educational Event – Key Outcome/Initiative) is correctly matched?

(a)Charter Act, 1813 – Allocated funds for promotion of education
(b)Macaulay’s Minute, 1835 – Emphasized traditional Sanskrit learning
(c)Serampore Mission – Promoted technical education for elite Indians
(d)Orientalist-Anglicist Debate – Resolved by Charter Act, 1833

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The Charter Act of 1813 directed the East India Company to set apart not less than one lakh rupees a year for education in India.

The money was for reviving literature, encouraging learned Indians and introducing knowledge of the sciences. It was the first statutory grant for education in British India, so the pair in option (a) is correctly matched.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Macaulay’s Minute, 1835 – Emphasized traditional Sanskrit learning — Macaulay's Minute (1835) argued the reverse. It dismissed Oriental learning and pressed for English education, so it did not emphasise Sanskrit.
(c)
Serampore Mission – Promoted technical education for elite Indians — The Serampore missionaries William Carey, Joshua Marshman and William Ward are known for Bible translation, printing and mission schools, not technical training for an elite.
(d)
Orientalist-Anglicist Debate – Resolved by Charter Act, 1833 — The debate was settled in 1835, when Bentinck's government adopted English education after Macaulay's Minute. The Charter Act of 1833 came two years earlier.

Concept

Company education policy moved in steps. The Charter Act of 1813 first earmarked money for education but left open which kind.

That gap produced the Orientalist–Anglicist debate: fund Sanskrit and Persian learning, or English. Macaulay's Minute of February 1835 argued for English, and Bentinck's resolution of March 1835 adopted it.

Wood's Despatch of 1854 then laid out a full system, from vernacular schools to universities.

The same Act of 1813 is better known for ending the Company's trade monopoly in India, except in tea and the China trade. Its education clause is what this pair tests.

Key facts

Charter Act 1813: not less than ₹1 lakh a year for education in India.
Macaulay's Minute on Indian Education is dated 2 February 1835.
Bentinck's resolution of 7 March 1835 made English education government policy.
The Charter Act of 1833 made the Governor-General of Bengal the Governor-General of India.

Study next

Wood's Despatch (1854) and the universities of 1857Hunter Commission (1882) on primary educationCharter Acts of 1793, 1813, 1833 and 1853 compared

Common traps

Reading Macaulay's Minute as a defence of Sanskrit: it argued for English.
Crediting the Charter Act of 1833 with ending the education debate: the resolution of 1835 did that.

Here each option pairs an education milestone with an outcome. Education policy also appears at 23 Sep 2025, 09:00, GA Q.8 (Wood's Despatch, 1854).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: History — all 218 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.