What is the purpose of education?

  In my opinion the purpose of education is for children to have wider knowledge of the world and given endless opportunities to explore different experiences. It’s a form of understanding the styles and unique ways of the individuals, enlightening their thoughts and mind. Education is teaching with a logic too it and the reasoning behind it. Helps learners to discriminate the knowledge and ignorance, light and dark, day and night, space and time, life and death.

The main reason of education is to bring things in to perspective such as learning the world is a sphere not flat, its not black but full of colour and shapes. What the world offers us, such as different experiences to explore and what is out there that life will offer us to do. Different individuals will have different input and output in life.

“The one continuing purpose of education, since ancient times, has been to bring people to as full a realization as possible of what it is to be a human being. Other statements of educational purpose have also been widely accepted: to develop the intellect, to serve social needs, to contribute to the economy, to create an effective work force, to prepare students for a job or career, to promote a particular social or political system. These purposes offered are undesirably limited in scope, and in some instances, they conflict with the broad purpose I have indicated; they imply a distorted human existence. The broader humanistic purpose includes all of them, and goes beyond them, for it seeks to encompass all the dimensions of human experience.” —Arthur W. Foshay 1991.

  The idea of schools is for them to teach the children the skills to ‘take command’ of themselves. The education system is designed and assessed upon ability of the children through exams, but a very few people argue as it should be prioritised to get the children to pass the tests. Schools and education prepare children these days ready for adulthood especially in primary schools. In my opinion I think children should be getting prepared for adult hood in Year 6 and upwards in to comprehensive, primary children should be enjoying their play, learning through their play not worrying about how to cook, and prepare food, organise money and so on. This should all take place in higher education rather than lower.

 Today, from the hard work of thousands of teachers, 100,000 more 6-year-olds are on track to become confident readers as a result of our focus on phonics. Two hundred thousand fewer pupils are persistently absent from school compared to 5 years ago. And over a million more children now attend a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ school than in 2010.

  But in some countries absences is constant, especially in the poor countries due to poverty, diseases and many other things stopping children attending schools. Poverty is a big part that’s stops children attending school. Money is a bigger issue to be able to fund children to attend school hence there is so many charities running to help raise money for children to be able to go to school.

  Empowering young people to succeed in the society, participate in culture, and leave school prepared for adult life. Delivering on commitment to social justice means placing these principles at the centre of everything, so that every young person can reach their potential.

“Education is the engine of our economy, it is the foundation of our culture, and it’s an essential preparation for adult life. Delivering on our commitment to social justice requires us to place these 3 objectives at the heart of our education system.

We all have a responsibility to educate the next generation of informed citizens, introducing them to the best that has been thought and said, and instilling in them a love of knowledge and culture for their own sake. But education is also about the practical business of ensuring that young people receive the preparation they need to secure a good job and a fulfilling career and have the resilience and moral character to overcome challenges and succeed.” (Gov.UK, 2019)

Bibliography

Arthur W. Foshay, “The Curriculum Matrix: Transcendence and Mathematics,” Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 1991.

BBC (2014) What is the point of school. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26127515 [accessed 04/12/18]

Gov.UK (2018) Education. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-purpose-of-education [accessed 04/12/18]

Gov.UK (2019) Purpose of Education. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-purpose-of-education [accessed 04/05/19]