It is now almost a cliche to assert that the education needs of today and tomorrow are vastly different from those of the 19th and 20th centuries. But ideas usually become clichés when they are true. Education in the colonial era was designed to produce clerks for the bureaucracy. What was taught, and what exams rewarded, was conformity and mastery of prescribed, narrowly defined content. A questioning attitude was dangerous, and the teaching of skills other than those needed by the colonial state superfluous. After independence education was extended to a wider population (though, arguably, not wide enough) and the content prescribed was partially modified to cater to the perceived needs of both nation building and the new industrial economy. But knowledge remained scarce and was as such only. This is an immense challenge that the Indian education system faces, and we must tackle it with fresh thinking .We must discard the mandarin (bureaucratic) mentality—one that pretence as progressive but is actually colonial in its quest.