Vol. 2, Issue 1, Part L (2016)

Abstract
Despite several attempts by the Government we see that inequality in education still persists. The historical process by which formal education started in India under the Colonial system can provide an answer to the modern day inequalities in education. In this paper an attempt is made to raise two questions. First is why British needed to teach poor and second is what kind of education was planned for them and why. As a consequence of this second point, I argue that poor remained poor due to the lost legitimacy of their form of knowledge thanks to the coming of formal school system. How this happened is the subject of enquiry I have tried to deal here.