Common Features of the Dalton Plan and the Basic Education

Dalton Plan and the Basic Education:

Basic education was planned by Mahatma Gandhiji, who aimed at drawing out the best from the child through education. He did not confine education up to literacy. He said that literacy is neither the beginning nor the end of education. On the other hand, Mahatma Gandhi said that work is the real beginning of education.

Really speaking, Mahatma Gandhi wanted to make children economically self-dependent and so he planned out the scheme of education through which the child, after having acquired education, may be able to earn his livelihood. On account of this, he laid emphasis more on reality than on idealism, more on practice than on theory and more on sociality than on education. Many of these features are common with the Dalton Plan. Dalton Plan is also practical and utilitarian. It tries to solve the problem of earning livelihood Psychology is common to both. Bot the schemes lay emphasis on natural attitude, tendency and activity. Basic education is meant for the children of 7 to 14 years while Dalton Plan is meant for the children of 8 to 12 years.

While both the schemes have a lot of common in them yet they are different in many respects as well. Basic education starts with only basic requirements of the education while Dalton Plan has an element of luxury in it. To equip a school under Basic Scheme would hardly mean a few hundred rupees while the Dalton Plan would involve thousands of rupees.

Reasons for the Dalton Plan not being Successful in Schools:

In India, if Dalton Plan could not succeed, it was on account of the huge expenditure that is involved in running it.

Secondly, the Plan, if implemented effectively, requires certain basic changes which are not possible at present. We are living in an age where everybody does not possess all the essential virtues. Industrialization and technological developments of society have brought about many evils in their wake. The Plan of education that can be effective today has to start keeping in view all these things. Dalton Plan does not start with all these assumptions and that is why it has not been very successful in these schools.