Essay on the role of education in society
Answers
Answered by
1
In the language of social sciences, education is defined as "the transmission of certain attitudes, knowledge and skills to the members of a society through formal systematic training". Today majority of the children in every society are expected to be to spend much of their first 18 years of life in school. This was not the case a century ago, when just a small elite in the developed countries like USA and UK had the privilege of attending school. In poor countries even today, most young people receive only a few years of formal schooling. But the social scientists also differentiate between education and schooling. Education is what the person has learned, whereby schooling is defined as the amount of time spent in institution dedicated to educating and which often confers degrees and diplomas on those who complete a period of enrollment.
Today schooling in low-income nations reflects local culture. But all low-income countries have one trait in common when it comes to schooling----there is not very much of it. In the worlds poorest nations, only half of all children ever get to school at all; in the world as a whole, just half of children reach the secondary grades. As a result majority of the children in Latin America, Asia and Africa can not read and write.
High-income nations endorse the idea that every one go to school. For one thing the workers who use machinery or computers need at least basic reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. In high-income nations, literacy is also necessary to carry on political democracy. American president Lyndon B. Johnson once said that "we have entered an age in which education is not just a luxury permitting some men and women an advantage over others. It has become a necessity without which a person is defenseless in this complex, industrialized society…..we have truly entered the century of the educated men and women".
Imagine how illiteracy would affect you! What would you do if you were unable to read street signs, menus, letters, simple instructions, want ads, telephone directories, labels, bills and bank statements? What would you do if you were unable to use calendars, city maps or any guidelines? How could you become an active participant in the society without reading skills? In America alone there are 27 million illiterate people, if literacy is to read only the simplest text and street signs.
Literacy has far reaching implications. It is seen as a process of consciousness raising aimed at human liberation. It also provides the foundations for an industrial and post-industrial society.
Apart from literacy, we commonly think of schools as agencies that provide formal, conscious, and systematic training. But schools teach more than the skills and the information classified in the academic curriculum. Whether intentionally or unwittingly, they impart a whole complex of unarticulated values, attitudes and behaviors-what is termed as "hidden curriculum". Students not only learn from the official coarse of study, but from the physical environment of the school, the attitude teachers and students exhibit towards one another, the social climate and the organization of the institution.
Today schooling in low-income nations reflects local culture. But all low-income countries have one trait in common when it comes to schooling----there is not very much of it. In the worlds poorest nations, only half of all children ever get to school at all; in the world as a whole, just half of children reach the secondary grades. As a result majority of the children in Latin America, Asia and Africa can not read and write.
High-income nations endorse the idea that every one go to school. For one thing the workers who use machinery or computers need at least basic reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. In high-income nations, literacy is also necessary to carry on political democracy. American president Lyndon B. Johnson once said that "we have entered an age in which education is not just a luxury permitting some men and women an advantage over others. It has become a necessity without which a person is defenseless in this complex, industrialized society…..we have truly entered the century of the educated men and women".
Imagine how illiteracy would affect you! What would you do if you were unable to read street signs, menus, letters, simple instructions, want ads, telephone directories, labels, bills and bank statements? What would you do if you were unable to use calendars, city maps or any guidelines? How could you become an active participant in the society without reading skills? In America alone there are 27 million illiterate people, if literacy is to read only the simplest text and street signs.
Literacy has far reaching implications. It is seen as a process of consciousness raising aimed at human liberation. It also provides the foundations for an industrial and post-industrial society.
Apart from literacy, we commonly think of schools as agencies that provide formal, conscious, and systematic training. But schools teach more than the skills and the information classified in the academic curriculum. Whether intentionally or unwittingly, they impart a whole complex of unarticulated values, attitudes and behaviors-what is termed as "hidden curriculum". Students not only learn from the official coarse of study, but from the physical environment of the school, the attitude teachers and students exhibit towards one another, the social climate and the organization of the institution.
Similar questions