The National Education Day is celebrated every year on November 11 to commemorate the birth anniversary of the first Union Education Minister, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. The contributions of Azad, who was responsible for setting up apex educational bodies in the nation including AICTE and UGC, are marked on this day every year. 

November 11 was declared as National Education Day by the central government in September 2008 and its celebration was inaugurated by the then president of India Pratibha Patil at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. 

Azad, who was a freedom fighter, scholar and educationist, was the key person behind setting up IITs in India, and the first Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Kharagpur, was also established by him. 

 “The primary aim of any system is to create balanced minds which cannot be misled,” Azad, who was committed to the building of nation through education, had said in his address to the first meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE).

Azad, born on November 1888, was also responsible for setting up the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Sahitya Academy, Lalit Kala Academy, Sangeet Natak Academy, and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). He was posthumously awarded Bharat Ratna in 1992.