Primary Education in Mughal Period

[Noor E Alam]

Mughal period in the era the Muslim rulers, Amirs and Omrahs were very much enthusiastic about literature beside the formal education. The Persian literature became popular, as it was the imperial language. School-based education system developed and expanded mainly in the reign of Akbar. Akbar transformed religious education into a formal education in the primary level along with non-formal reading, writing and accountancy. In this period, Hindu-Muslim had the opportunity to exchange education and culture with each other and blending of Hindi, Persian and Arabic language a new language created which is known as Urdu. In this era Maktab, Madrasa was for the Muslim children and Pathshala, tol for Hindu children. The wealthy people of the society established those and they appointed teachers, donated land and money for the institutions. So both the administration and the society conducted the educational activities with collaboration. But Maktab-based education was funded mainly by the collections of the Mosques, Jakat and other donations. So, it is certainly can be said that even at that time in our society there was practice of complimentary education or primary education. Additionally, there was an independent bureau for managing the funds and governing the state -owned educational institutions.

Source:- http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=Primary_Education