Janaki Nair (Ed.), Un/Common Schooling: Educational Experiments in Twentieth-Century India. Orient BlackSwan, 2022, pp. 254, Price: ₹1,145, ISBN: 9789354422775.

Close to eight decades after achieving independence, India’s inherited modern schooling system has seen significant expansion and transformation. Despite inherent flaws, modern schooling has become deeply ingrained in the national-social imagination, indistinguishable from the concept of education itself. Its presumed nature and form are reflected in laws, policies, institutions, and everyday common sense. This mainstream system has historically operated under bureaucratic governance frameworks which exercise stringent control over its various aspects. This includes how education is provisioned and delivered, as well as determining appropriate school knowledge and instruction. On one hand, the stated goal of this massified system is to ensure uniformity of values in a social landscape that is as divided as it is diverse. On the other hand, it reflects the enduring legacy of colonialism, adapted and perpetuated in a post-independence era with little imagination for nurturing human qualities, and focused singularly on preparing youth for the job market. This has resulted in a largely homogenised, inauthentic education that alienates students from their own contexts.