Sociology

EDUCATION

Meaning of Education

The word ‘education’ has a very wide connotation. It is hard to define. There is no single objective that can cover the whole of life with its various manifestations. The two poles of our concern; the temporal and the world of spirit are widely apart. Philosophers and thinkers from Socrates to Dewey in the West and Yajnavalkya to Gandhi in the East have defined education in accordance with their philosophy of life with the result that there emerged divergent concepts and definitions of education. The concept of education is like a diamond which appears to be a different colour when seen from a different angle.

Education word is derived from the Latin word educare, which literally means ’to nourish’, ‘to bring up’, and ‘to rise’. This means, educating a child means nourishing or bringing up the child according to certain ends or aims. It may be defined as a process whereby the social heritage of a group is passed on from one generation to another, as well as the process whereby the child becomes socialized. The idea of education is not merely to impart knowledge to the pupil in some subjects but to develop in him those habits and attitudes with which he may successfully face the future.

Definition of Education

1. According to John Dewey, “Education is reconstruction or reorganization of experience, which adds to the meaning of experience and increases the ability to direct subsequent experiences.”

2. According to Gandhiji, “By education I mean an all-round drawing out of the best in child and man, body, mind and spirit.”

Function of Education

The five main functions of education are –

1. To complete the socialization process: 

The main social objective of education is to com­plete the socialization process. The child in a modern family depends on the school and other institutions to complete the socialization process. The school devotes much of its time and energy to matters such as co-operation, good citizenship, doing one’s duty, and upholding the law. Directly through text­books, and indirectly through the celebration of programmes patriotic sentiments are instilled.

2. To transmit the cultural heritage: 

All societies maintain themselves by the exploitation of a culture. It refers to a set of beliefs and skills, art, literature, philosophy, religion, music, etc. that are not carried through the mechanism of heredity. They must be learned. Education has this function of cul­tural transmission in all societies.

3. For the formation of social personality: 

Individuals must have personalities shaped or fashioned in ways that fit into the culture. Education has the function of forming social personalities and helps in transmitting culture through proper moulding of social personalities. In this way, it contributes to society’s integration and adapt themselves to their environment, to survive, and to reproduce themselves.

4. Reformation of attitudes: 

Education aims at the reformation of attitudes wrongly developed by the children already. For various reasons, the child may have absorbed a host of attitudes, beliefs and disbeliefs, loyalties and prejudices, jealousy and hatred, etc. These are to be reformed. It is the function of education to see that unfounded beliefs, illogical prejudices and unreasoned loyalties are removed from the child’s mind.

5. Education for occupational placements: 

Education helps the adolescent for earning his livelihood. Education has come to be today as nothing more than an instrument of livelihood. It should enable the student to eke out his livelihood. Education must prepare the student for future occupational positions. The youth should be enabled to play a productive role in society. Accordingly, great emphasis has been placed on vocational training.

6. Encourages the spirit of competition: 

The school instils cooperative values through civic and patriotic exhortation or advice. Yet the school’s main emphasis is upon personal competition. For each subject studied the child is compared with the companions by the percentage of marks or rankings. The teacher admires and praises those who do well and frowns upon those who fail to do well.

7. Education Imparts Values: 

The school’s curriculum, its “extra-curricular” activities, and the informal relationships amongst students and teachers communicate social skills and values. Through various activities, a school imparts values such as ‘co-operation’ or team spirit, obedience, ‘fair play’. This is also done through curriculum, that is, through lessons in history, literature, etc.

8. Education acts as an integrative force: 

Education acts as an integrative force in society by communicating values that unite different society sections. The family may fail to provide the child with the essential knowledge of the wider society’s social skills and values. The school or the educational institutions can help the child learn new skills and learn to interact with people of different social backgrounds.

Therefore, education is an essential ingredient for all ages and stages of the life of an individual, society, and the nation. Education can be a real panacea for all social evils.

Influence of Education on Society 

Education plays a very important role in moulding the character of an individual. It is one of the concrete sources from which one get information and knowledge. It affects society. We can make sense of its effective role from the following points.

1. Preservation and transmission of our social, moral and cultural values: 

In Education, through curriculum, students will be acquainted with social, moral and cultural values and teachers make them familiar with values and ideals through different activities, games, story-telling etc. Education makes them familiar with the constitution, rules and regulations of citizens and so on. As we find in NPE 1986 major objectives to produce a productive citizen have been fulfilled by education, so education preserves our value and makes others imbibe those values.

2. Awakening of Social feelings: 

Through education, individuals become aware of unity, love, fraternity and other values. Education makes all people get awakened to being a part of society and contributing to the world as a society. People know different values and life skills and thus they develop concern for society including social mindedness, values life skills, learning to be, learning to do, learning to know, learning to live together via different activities storytelling dramatization.

3. The political development of society: 

Education makes all aware of the rights and duties of all, which are their responsibilities and duties to develop their civic sense. Through different lesson of political leaders and stories education develop ideal leadership quality so that future citizens can lead to the state as a society.

4. Economic development of society: 

Education develops skills in individuals and makes them productive citizens. Through education, everyone learns how to earn money and as per their qualification he gets job or labour and on the whole with the help of education more or less everyone get work and earn money so due to increasing literacy per capita income will increase As we find government take help in the form of tax and thus our economy develops. Because of education, people migrate to other country and their earning helps to develop society, country. Thus education affects the economic development of society.

5. Social control:

Education makes all aware of customs and duties the same as it makes aware about the rules and regulations as we find the rules in the Indian constitution. People know how to preserve their lives via education. They make also familiar with crimes. Thus education provides a guideline and it controls all society.

6. Social changes and reforms: 

Education makes individuals perfects and aware of their rights. So can claim against dwelled superstitions, beliefs which are harmful to them. Through education, everyone learns to grow to live and save from difficulty and inculcate values and ideals in their lives and ideals in their lives so they can appeal in a court having of feeling injustice. Education makes all aware of how to live peacefully and how to face difficulties in their lives. They become aware of the sayings like ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ to develop their risk-taking attitudes via education.

7. Socialization of a child: 

Education trains a child’s mind and teaches him how to inculcate values in his life. It makes the child understand society, how he is a part of society, his roles in society, how he should behave, how he should interact with others, etc. Education helps him to understand who is he? And it develops a sense of a social being in him. In short, education socializes a child.

Thus, education produces productive citizens it helps everyone flourish and makes them ideal citizens of society. To sum up, Education influences society.