Mass Education

Here we aim at delineating a short historical excursus of the exercise books in Italy, by describing the complex process of normalization which, in the period from the last two decades of Nineteenth century and the first half of the Twentieth, transformed it - from a hand-crafted object with a local distribution - into an industrial mass product, an unequivocal leader of the flourishing Italian school market. In order to reach this goal, we analyse the controversial relationships that existed among the firms which produced the exercise books, the teachers and the stationers. Finally, the intervention by the fascist regime is described, which was pojnted at controlling the production and the marketing of exercise books at a national level, because of  their nature of a powerful means of propaganda.

The current paper depicts the substantial contribution of mass media to cooperate the government and the society on the right track on their exertion to safeguard, administer and stimulate human rights and education. Sometimes, customary unrestricted speech or freedom of countenance disputes accept that the main concern is an individual in particular the rights of speakers to prompt their opinion to others. Nevertheless, there are awe-inspiring disputes to encompass freedom of speech to the mass media. The media provides readers, listeners, viewers with information and the range of ideas and opinions that empower them to contribute actively in a political egalitarianism and instruct them about their basic human rights. The relationship between press liberty and liberty of speaking is even sometimes considered to be alike. They have approximately the same connotation. The incontrovertible supremacy of the media and its ombudsman place as a fourth division of the government has been substantiated in many cases. Copious human rights defilements have been disclosed by the media and the perceptions of human rights have touched the civic through the media which in return apprised many to uphold the gens of the international human rights commandments.

In this post-modern world human beings are viewed as potential resources and the prosperity of a nation largely depends upon its literate people. Education is thus regarded as compulsory for an all-round development of a country. Indeed, it is integrally linked with the development process. But the scenario was altogether different during the 19th century in Bengal. The people of present generation can’t even imagine the then socio-cultural milieu. It was a sorry sight. There was no such conception of universal education. And if any such system was prevailing there its access was only confined to the affluent class. The laymen, devoid of education, were dictated and controlled by religious orthodoxy, social rites and prejudices, different customs and degrading superstitions. Vidyasagar was well aware about this virtual wasteland. He realised that only true education can break the inertia of the society. In other words he regarded education an instrument of social change. It was his firm conviction that true education would empower individuals and communities by generating an awareness of one’s own potentialities and inner strength thus enabling people to combat oppression, exclusion and discrimination. This study attempts to point out the crucial role played by Vidyasagar in spreading education among the masses during the 19th century.

The purpose of this book is to provide an overview of recent developments in higher education and the various factors affecting this development. Questions raised thereby are: - What are the developments in participation in higher education? - What is the situation of graduates in the labor market and what is the impact of this on participation? - How autonomous functions the education system? – How is education appreciated and what is the impact of this on participation? The main finding is that higher education is developing into a mass-participation. This mass-participation has created some policy problems such as the problem of low success rates, oversupply on the labor market (unemployment, under employment level), increasing costs of higher education, the need for continuing education, etc

What was the impact of government grants on the emerging national elementary school systems of the nineteenth century? This article deals with this question through a study of the introduction of matching government grants in Sweden during the latter part of the nineteenth century. The analysis shows that, although the government grants increased rapidly with the introduction of matching grants, they did not crowd out local funding. Instead, the grants stimulated local taxation, increasing the number of teachers as well as their salaries. This occurred because the grants were perceived as an incentive by local school boards and because the financial control of the Swedish elementary school system remained at a local level. Thus, this article also contributes to the research on the expansion of mass education during the nineteenth century, commenting on the significance of both state intervention and a decentralised organisation.

Universities were first established in Europe around the twelfth century, although primary schools did not appear until the nineteenth. This paper accounts for this phenomenon using a political economy model of educational change on who are educated (the elite or the masses) and what is taught (general or specific/vocational education). A key assumption is that general education is more effective