New Delhi: India celebrates National Education Day every year on November 11 to commemorate the birth anniversary of the country’s first education minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. He served the nation between 1947 to 1958 during Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s government. A reformer, freedom fighter, scholar and eminent educationist, he was committed to building the nation through education.
Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) had proclaimed the day as a national observance on September 11, 2008. The first National Education Day was inaugurated on November 11, 2008, by then President of India, Pratibha Patil at Vigyan Bhawan.
Maulana Azad was born on this day in 1888. He is known as the key architect of education in independent India. The day is observed to remember the exemplary contributions of Maulana Azad in nation-building, institution-building and in the field of education. He used to say that schools are laboratories that produce future citizens of the country.
He laid the base for higher education and technological and scientific research and education as well as the recent emergence of knowledge-based industries.
The late education minister also promoted research in eastern learning and literature. He also set up the three academies to develop the fine arts and to create socio-religious and cultural inter-linkages in India- Lalit Kala Academy, Sangeet Natak Academy and Sahitya Academy.
Apart from this, he also advocated education for women and free and compulsory primary education for children up to the age of 14.
Several institutes including IIT Kharagpur, University Grants Commission (UGC), Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) are some of his establishments. He passed away on February 22, 1958, at the age of 69.