Chitra Jayant Naik (1918–2010) was an Indian educationist, writer, social worker, the chairperson of the Indian Institute of Education and the expert member of the

Planning Commission of India The Planning Commission was an institution in the Government of India, which formulated India's Five-Year Plans, among other functions. In his first Independence Day speech in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his intention to dissol ...

. She was the chairperson of the Non-formal Education Committee set up by the

Ministry of Human Resource Development The Ministry of Education ( MoE; formerly the Ministry of Human Resource Development from 1985 to 2020) is a ministry of the Government of India, responsible for the implementation of the National Policy on Education. The Ministry is further ...

and was a member of the

National Literacy Mission National Education Mission (Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan) was launched in 2018. It was allocated a budget of in 2019 Interim Union Budget of India. Samagra Shiksha is an overarching programme for the school education sector extending from pre-school ...

. The

Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

awarded her the fourth highest Indian civilian honour of

Padma Shri Padma Shri (IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is confe ...

in 1986.

Early life

Chitra Naik was born on 15 July 1918 at

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

in the western Indian state of Maharashtra and graduated in arts with honours. She continued her studies to get another graduate degree in education and secured a doctoral degree (PhD) from

Mumbai University The University of Mumbai is a collegiate, state-owned, public research university in Mumbai. The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. Ratan Tata is the appointed h ...

. In 1953, she received a

Fulbright scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

and did post doctoral studies at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

, New York. Her career started at the Rural Institute in Bhudargad,

Kolhapur District Kolhapur district (Marathi pronunciation: olʱaːpuɾ is a district in the Maharashtra state of India. The city of Kolhapur is its district headquarter. It is situated near Panchaganga river. It is bordered by the Sangli district to the Nor ...

where she organised educational camps among the

harijan Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming ...

s, gathered women to form women's associations (Mahila Mandal) and founded Children's daycare centres (Balwadi) and a health clinic.

Legacy and positions

In 1948, she helped her husband and renowned educationist, Jayant Pandurang Naik, to found the Indian Institute of Education (IIE), a research institute affiliated to

, to facilitate higher education and research facilities for the teachers in the

Greater Bombay Mumbai Metropolitan Region (abbreviated to MMR and previously also as Greater Bombay Metropolitan Area), is a metropolitan area consisting of Mumbai (Bombay) and its satellite towns in the northern Konkan division, of the Maharashtra state in w ...

area. Chitra Naik was a collaborator in the endeavours of Jayant Naik, an inductee of the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. I ...

Roll of Honour of the 100 significant educational thinkers of the last 25 centuries. She served as the director of IIE and under her leadership, the institution set up training centres for women in the disciplines of home nursing, first aid, maternal and child care, sanitation and nutrition. She also established a Children's Home (Bal Bhavan) and a training centre for social workers, organised education camps on family planning for women and conducted a project study on ''Mobilising Gram Panchayats for Rural Development''. Naik was the director of National Institute of Basic Education, New Delhi and chaired the Non-formal Education Committee of the

. She was a member of the

and attended to the responsibilities of the General education, Social welfare and Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe as the expert member of the commission for the Ninth Five Year Plan (1997–2002). She was a member of the Working Group on Adult Education (1978–83) under the Ministry of Human Resource Development and a permanent member of the ''CABE Committee on Decentralised Management of Education'' (1993) set up by the Central Advisory Board of Education She served as a member of the

and was involved with the International Institute of Adult and Lifelong Education (IIALE) as a member of its International Consultative Committee. She was in close association with the

Government of Maharashtra The Government of Maharashtra is the state governing authority for the states of india, state of Maharashtra, India. It is a democratically elected State governments of India, government with 288 Member of the Legislative Assembly (India), MLAs ...

and served in various capacities as the Director of

Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education () is a statutory and autonomous body established under the "Maharashtra Secondary Boards Act" 1965 (amended in 1977). Most important task of the board, among few others, i ...

, Director of Higher Education and Director of Education. Naik is the author of the books, ''Shikshan ani Samaj'' (

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

), ''Educational innovation in India'', and ''Lokmanya Tilak as Educational Thinker''. She has also written many books for children of which four were published by the

National Book Trust National Book Trust (NBT) is an Indian publishing house, which was founded in 1957 as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Education of the Government of India. The activities of the Trust include publishing, promotion of books and reading, ...

in fourteen languages.

Death

Towards the later part of her life, Naik suffered from heart and lung diseases and was admitted to hospital in December 2010. The treatment could not save her and she died on the

Christmas eve Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas Day, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus. Christmas Day is observed around the world, and Christmas Eve is widely observed as a full or partial holiday in anticipati ...

of 2010, at the age of 92, at

, survived by her niece, Aruna Giri.

Awards and honours

Chitra Naik was a recipient of the Pranawanand Award for Educational Research of the University Grants Commission and Jeevan Sadhana Award of the

University of Pune Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), formerly the University of Poona, is a collegiate public state university located in the city of Pune, India. It was established in 1949, and is spread over a campus in the neighbourhood of Ganes ...

. The

awarded her the civilian honour

in 1986 and she received the first ''Karma Veer Bahurao Patil Samaj Seva Award'' in 1989. The Indian Adult Education Association (IAEA) selected her for the Tagore Literacy Award in 1992 and the same year,

awarded her the Raja Roy Singh Award. This was followed by the Rajiv Gandhi Award for social Service and the

Jan Amos Comenius International Award and, in 2002, she received the

Jamnalal Bajaj Award Jamnalal Bajaj Award is an Indian award, for promoting Gandhian values, community service and social development. Established in 1978, by the Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation of Bajaj Group, it is given annually in four categories, and usually presented ...

from the

Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation Jamnalal Kaniram Bajaj (4 November 1889 – 11 February 1942) was an Indian industrialist. He founded the Bajaj Group of companies in the 1920s, and the group now has 24 companies, including six that are listed on the bourses. He was also a c ...

Bibliography

* * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Naik, Chitra Recipients of the Padma Shri in literature & education 1918 births 2010 deaths Writers from Pune Marathi people Indian women educational theorists Indian women science writers Indian social sciences writers University of Mumbai alumni Columbia University alumni English-language writers from India Social workers from Maharashtra 20th-century Indian educational theorists 20th-century Indian women scientists 20th-century Indian women writers 20th-century Indian writers Women writers from Maharashtra 21st-century Indian women writers 21st-century Indian writers 21st-century Indian educational theorists 21st-century Indian women educators Scientists from Pune Women educators from Maharashtra Educators from Maharashtra 20th-century women educators