The East India Company felt that certain defects had cropped in the education system of the country therefore, in 1885 Lord Ripon the then viceroy of India was requested by the General council if India to institute an enquiry into Indian education. Therefore, to look into the matter, Lord Ripan appointed the first Indian Education commission on February 3,1882 with William Hunter, a member of the executive council of viceroy as its chairman. The commission came to be known as “Hunter commission, after his name. Besides the chairman, the commission constituted 20 other members out of whom a few of them were Indians.
The commission was to make the following enquiries:
(1) Condition of primary education and methods of its expansion.
(2) The position of state institutions and their importance.
(3) Position of missionary institutions in the general
scheme of Indian education.
(4) Attitude of Govt. towards private enterprise It also undertook an enquiry into the system of grant-in-aid.
Recommendations on primary Education.
(1) Primary education should be imparted through the medium of the mother tongue.
(2) Grants-in-aid should be given to the primary schools of the educationally backward or tribal regions
(3) The management and supervision of primary education be entrusted to the Local Boards would take up the responsibility of the finance, inspection, management and expansion of primary education.
(4) Literate people should be preferred for appointment on the government’s posts.
(5) The District and municipal Boards were directed to assign specific funds to primary education
(6) The local funds were to be exclusively spent on primary education.
