Intelligence and educational survey of the eleven-year-olds in the Government High Schools of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, India

Abstract

So far there has been no mental testing in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. In fact there was, till recently, hardly any appreciation of the value of a mental survey. Even if there had been a desire for this type of investigation the means were absent. There were no tests. The whole field of education in the province lay unexplored. Even to-day there are many problems of curriculum and method to be decided by the scientific method and consequently there are enormous opportunities for any worker in this field.It was considered desirable, therefore, to carry out a survey with the idea of discovering possibilities of future work. A survey is likely to suggest other problems which may be worked on later. A. a survey can be likened to the tapping offield having rich reserve of minerals. We tap it and hope we will hit upon something valuable.With this idea in mind I planned a survey of Intelligence and the two major school subjects. It was thought at first to carry out the survey of a district but later on, on account of getting better administrative facilities and the idea of getting a bigger and a more representative sample, it was thought advisable to extend the survey to the whole province. I call it an Intelligence and Educational Survey. It consists of giving an Intelligence, an English and an Arithmetic test to all the children of 11+ in Government High Schools of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh (henceforward called U.P.) and scrutinising the results.There were other ideas which were responsible for the selection of this investigation. Firstly giving out of the tests in the survey presupposes the existence of tests. As there were no tests in existence they had to be constructed. As a result of the survey, therefore, there would come into existence, it was thought, three tests (one Intelligence, one English and one Arithmetic) standardised on a fairly large and representative sample of the population of the province.Secondly I had always thought that it would be interesting to find out by a scientific method the comparative I.Q's of the various religions and the castes living in the province.) It woúld be interesting to find whether the Hindus or the Mohammadans are more intelligent. We would like to know which of the four castes (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishas and Sudras) is most intelligent and further what is the order of merit of intelligence in these castes. There are a number of popular ideas on these subjects among the population but as may be expected there is a considerable amount of prejudice influencing these ideas. The popular opinions in these matters are influenced by the likes and the dislikes of the group among which these opinions are prevelant. ( A scientific investigation on the point will at any rate be free from this subjective bias. The survey could throw light on the comparative intelligence of the children of the various religions and castes.The third idea was to demonstrate the practical utility of this type of work. The Inspectors judge the efficiency of the work of the various schools when they visit them. They look at the exercise books of the children, the diaries of the teachers and listen to a few lessons. On these observations they base their judgment on the efficiency of the school. Once again the subjective estimate plays an important part in making an estimate. A survey of this type will provide the Inspector of Schools with the mean I.Qs. and the quotients in the various subjects together with the mean Achievement Ratios of the children. These figures will help the inspector by providing an objective standard on which to base his estimate of the work of the school, It will help the inspectors further by detecting the Backward children in the schools and thus raising the question whether there is any real problem of Backward children in their circles and if so how is it going to be met ? Are the bright children doing work up to the full measure of their capacity? If not, it will be worth while investigating whether the reason for this is the lack of proper methods of teaching or laziness on the part of the children themselves.These were, then, the general considerations which were instrumental in the carrying out this investigation which has been called "An Intelligence and Educational Survey of the eleven -year -olds in the Government High Schools of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, India."