Education in emerging india free essay sample

Education in its general sense is a form of learning in which the knowledge, skills, and habits of a group of people are transferred from one generation to the next through teaching, training, or research. Education frequently takes place under the guidance of others, but may also be autodidactic. [1] Any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts may be considered educational. Education is commonly divided into stages such as preschool, primary school, secondary school and then college, university or apprenticeship. 2. Education is a systematic process through which a child or an adult acquires knowledge, experience, skill and sound attitude. It makes an individual civilized, refined, cultured and educated. For a civilized and socialized society, education is the only means. Its goal is to make an individual perfect. Every society gives importance to education because it is a panacea for all evils. It is the key to solve the various problems of life. DEFINITIONS Since time immemorial, education is estimated as the right road to progress and prosperity. Different educationists’ thoughts from both Eastern and Western side have explained the term ‘education’ according to the need of the hour. Various educationists have given their views on education. Some important definitions are: 1. Mahatma Gandhi – â€Å"By education I mean an all-round drawing out of the best in man – body, mind and spirit. † 2. Rabindranath Tagore – â€Å"Education enables the mind to find out the ultimate truth, which gives us the wealth of inner light and love and gives significance to life. † 3. Dr. Zakir Husain – â€Å"Education is the process of the individual mind, getting to its full possible development. Swami Vivekananda – â€Å"Education is the manifestation of divine perfection already existing in man. † 5. Aristotle â€Å"Education is the creation of sound mind in a sound body. † 6. Rousseau â€Å"Education is the child’s development from within. † 7. Herbert Spencer- â€Å"Education is complete living. † 8. Plato – â€Å"Education is the capacity to feel pleasure and pain at the right moment. † 9. Aristotle – â€Å"Education is the creation of a sound mind in a sound body. † 10. Pestalozzi – â€Å"Education is natural, harmonious and progressive development of man’s innate powers. † 11. Froebel -â€Å"Education is enfoldment of what is already enfolded in the germ. † 12. T. P. Nunn â€Å"Education is the complete development of the individuality of the child. † 13. John Dewey – â€Å"Education is the process of living through a continuous reconstruction of experiences. † 14. Indira Gandhi – â€Å"Education is a liberating force and in our age it is also a democratizing force, cutting across the barriers of caste and class, smoothing out inequalities imposed by birth and other circumstances. † John Locke said, â€Å"Plants are developed by cultivation and men by education†. This world would have been enveloped in intellectual darkness if it had not been illuminated by the light of education. It is right to say that the story of civilization is the story of education. Thus, education is an integral part of human life. It is the basic condition for a development of a whole man and vital instrument For accelerating the wellbeing and prosperity by the light of education. NATURE OF EDUCATION As is the meaning of education, so is its nature. It is very complex. Let us now discuss the nature of education: 1. Education is a life-long process- Education is a continuous and lifelong process. It starts from the womb of the mother and continues till death. It is the process of development from infancy to maturity. It includes the effect of everything which influences human personality. 2. Education is a systematic process- It refers to transact its activities through a systematic institution and regulation. 3. Education is development of individual and the society- It is called a force for social development, which brings improvement in every aspect in the society. 4. Education is modification of behaviour- Human behaviour is modified and improved through educational process. Education is purposive: every individual has some goal in his life. Education contributes in attainment of that goal. There is a definite purpose underlined all educational activities. 6. Education is a training- Human senses, mind, behaviour, activities; skills are trained in a constructive and socially desirable way. 7. Education is instruction and direction- It directs and instructs an individual to fulfill his desires and needs for exaltation of his whole personality. 8. Education is life- Life without education is meaningless and like the life of a beast. Every aspect and incident needs education for its sound development. 9. Education is continuous reconstruction of our experiences- As per the definition of John Dewey education reconstructs and remodels our experiences towards socially desirable way. 10. Education helps in individual adjustment: a man is a social being. If he is not able to adjust himself in different aspects of life his personality can’t remain balanced. Through the medium of education he learns to adjust himself with the friends, class fellows, parents, relations, neighbours and teachers etc. Education is balanced development: Education is concerned with the development of all faculties of the child. it performs the functions of the physical, mental, aesthetic, moral, economic, spiritual development of the individual so that the individual may get rid of his animal instincts by sublimating the same so that he becomes a civilized person. 12. Education is a dynamic process: Education is not a static but a dynamic process which develops the child according to changing situations and times. It always induces the individual towards progress. It reconstructs the society according to the changing needs of the time and place of the society. 13. Education is a bipolar process: According to Adams, education is a bipolar process in which one personality acts on another to modify the development of other person. The process is not only conscious but deliberate. 14. Education is a three dimensional process: John Dewey has rightly remarked, â€Å"All educations proceeds by participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race. † Thus it is the society which will determine the aims, contents and methods of teachings. In this way the process of education consists of 3 poles – the teacher, the child and the society. 15. Education as growth: The end of growth is more growth and the end of education is more education. According to John Dewey, â€Å"an individual is a changing and growing personality. † The purpose of education is to facilitate the process of his/her growth. Therefore, the role of education is countless for a perfect society and man. It is necessary for every society and nation to bring holistic happiness and prosperity to its individuals. AIMS OF EDUCATION Aims give direction to activities. Aims of education are formulated keeping in view the needs of situation. Human nature is multisided with multiple needs, which are related to life. Educational aims are correlated to ideals of life. The goal of education should be the full flowering of the human on this earth. According to a UNESCO study, â€Å"the physical, intellectual, emotional and ethical integration of the individual into a complete man/woman is the fundamental aim of education. † The goal of education is also to form children into human persons committed to work for the creation of human communities of love, fellowship, freedom, justice and harmony. Students are to be moulded only by making them experience the significance of these values in the school itself. Teachers could achieve this only by the lived example of their lives manifested in hundreds of small and big transactions with students in word and deed. Individual and Social Aims: Individual aims and social aims are the most important aims of education. They are opposed to each other individual aims gives importance for the development of the individuality. Social aim gives importance to the development of society through individual not fulfilling his desire. But it will be seen that development of individuality assumes meaning only in a social environment. Individual Aims – Sir Percy Nunn observes, â€Å"Nothing goods enters into the human world except in and through the free activities of individual men and women and that educational practice must be shaped the individual. Education should give scope to develop the inborn potentialities through maximum freedom. † Because: (1) Biologists believe that every individual is different from others. Every child is a new and unique product and a new experiment with life. Thompson says, â€Å"Education is for the individual†. Individual should be the centre of all educational efforts and activities. (2) Naturalists believe that central aim of education is the autonomous development of the individual. Rousseau said, â€Å"Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Author of Nature, but everything degenerates in the hands of man. † God makes all things good, man meddles with them and they become evil. God creates everything good man makes it evil. So individual should be given maximum freedom for its own development. (3) Psychologists believe that education is an individual process because of individual differences. No two individuals are alike. So education should be according to the interest of the individual. Criticism of Individual Aim: Individual aim is not desirable because man is a social animal. Society’s interest should be protected. (1) Individual aim makes individual selfish. (2) Maximum freedom may go against the society. (3) Individuality cannot develop from a vacuum; it develops in a social atmosphere. (4) Unless society develops, individual cannot develop. (5) Who will recognize society- where individual is selfish? Social Aim: The supporters believe that society or state is supreme or real. The individual is only a means. The progress of the society is the aim of education. Education is for the society and of the society. The function of education is for the welfare of the state. The state will make the individual as it desires. It prepares the individual to play different roles in society. Individuality has no value, and personality is meaningless apart from society. If society will develop individual will develop automatically. Here society plays an important role. Criticism of Social Aim: (1) It makes individual only a tool of government. It reduces individual to a mere non-entity. (3) Society ignores the legitimate needs, desires and interests of the individual. (4) It is against the development of individuality of the individual. Synthesis between individual and social aims of education: Individual aim and social aim of education go independently. Both are opposing to each other. It is not in reality. Neither the individual nor the society can exist. The individual is the product of the society while society finds its advancement in the development of its individual member. Individual cannot develop in vacuum. According to John Adams, â€Å"Individuality requires a social medium to grow. † And T. P. Nunn says,† Individuality develops in social environment. † Conclusion: According to James Ross, â€Å"The aim of education is the development of valuable personality and spiritual individuality. † The true aim of education cannot be other than the highest development of the individual as a member of society. Let education burn the individual flame, feeding it with the oil of society. ETYMOLOGICAL MEANING OF EDUCATION Etymologically, the word ‘Education’ has been derived from different Latin words. Educare’ which means ‘to bring out’ or ‘to nourish’. b) ‘educere’ which means ‘to lead out’ or ‘to draw out’. c) ‘educatum’ which means ‘act of teaching’ or ‘training’. d) ‘educatus’ which means ‘to bring up, rear, educate’. e) ‘educatio’ which means â€Å"a breeding, a bringing up, a rearing. †  · The Greek word ‘pedagogy’ is sometimes used for education.  · The most common Indian word ‘shiksha’ is derived from the Sanskrit verbal root ‘shas’ which means ‘to discipline’, ‘to control’, ‘to instruct’ and ‘to teach’.  · Similarly the word ‘vidya’ is derived from Sanskrit verbal root ‘vid’ which means ‘to know’. Vidya is thus the subject matter of knowledge. This shows that disciplining the mind and imparting knowledge where the foremost considerations in India. Back in the 1500s, the word education meant â€Å"the raising of children,† but it also meant â€Å"the training of animals. † While there are probably a few teachers who feel like animal trainers, education these days has come to mean either â€Å"teaching† or â€Å"the process of acquiring knowledge. † Functions of education The two important questions concerning the role of education in society are: what could education achieve? And does it do that well? The answer to the questions can be given by associating four central functions to education, on an abstract level prevalent in most educational system (Peschar and Wesselingh 1999) 1. The equal opportunity function: to promote equal opportunities to children of different backgrounds. 2. The selection function: to sort students efficiently according to their talents and interest. The selection function implies that efficient learning is achieved when the sorting process is optimized. The total production of knowledge and skill is then optimized. The allocation function: to prepare for the labour market. This function implies that education teaches skills that are productive for work, and thereby helps school leavers in the process of being allocated to different labour market positions, and employers in optimizing their productions. 4. The socialization function: to socialize students and pupils into active citizenship. Education can have an active role in the formation of active and participating citizens, and it can help to promote equality in civic competence. Moulding: The social function of education is to qualify the individual to function in the role he is to play later on in society; that is, to mould his character in such a way that it approximates the social character that his desires coincide with the necessities of his social role. Growth : (ref) Of all the processes involved in acquisition of mental tools, Vygotsky focused primarily on the use of language (it was through the work of his colleagues and students that acquisition of non-verbal mental tools was studied). For him, language is both the most important mental tool and a medium facilitating the acquisition of other mental tools. One of the best-known concepts that illustrates Vygotskys view of language is the concept of private speech. Private speech, or self-talk, originates in social speech, the initial form of speech that is directed to other people. Although it retains the audible characteristic of social speech, private speech changes its function. It now becomes speech directed to oneself rather than speech that is regulated or directed by a more capable person. Noticing that children tend to increase the amount of self-talk when facing more challenging tasks, Vygotsky hypothesized that at some point, they start using private speech to organize (plan, direct, or evaluate) their behaviors. The use of private speech peaks during preschool years and then decreases. Vygotsky associates this decrease with private speech turning first into inner speech and then into verbal thinking. This evolution of speech–from social to self-directed to internalized–exemplifies the path of all higher mental functions, which was described by Vygotsky in his law of the development of higher mental functions. According to this law, each higher mental function appears twice in the course of child development: first as shared or carried out by an individual jointly with other people–intersubjective–and then as appropriated or internalized by this individual and used independently–intrasubjective. Vygotskys view of child development and education is an extension of his general approach to the development of higher mental functions. Consistent with his definition of development as socially determined, Vygotsky introduced a new relationship between education, learning, and development. Vygotsky argued against the theorists who believed that child development occurs spontaneously and is driven by the processes of maturation and cannot be affected by education. Neither did he agree with those who claimed that instruction could alter development at any time regardless of a childs age or capacities. Instead, he proposed a more complex and dynamic relationship between learning and development that is determined by what he termed a childs zone of proximal development (ZPD). Vygotskys theory is based on the idea that learning can lead development, and development can lead learning, and this process takes place through a dynamic interrelationship. The ZPD is the area between a learners level of independent performance (often called developmental level) and the level of assisted performance–what the child can do with support. Independent performance is the best the learner can do without help, and assisted performance is the maximum the learner can achieve with help. By observing assisted performance one can investigate a learners potential for current highest level of functioning. ZPD reveals the learners potential and is realized in interactions with knowledgeable others or in other supportive contexts (such as make-believe play for preschool children). By providing assistance to learners within their ZPD we are supporting their growth. Through identification of a learners ZPD, teachers find out what knowledge, skills, and understandings have not yet surfaced for the learner but are on the edge of emergence. Teachers also study ways to engage the learner in shared or co-operative learning experience through participation in the learners ZPD. This involves doing more than completing a task in a combined fashion; it involves developing the learners higher mental functions, such as the ability to plan, evaluate, memorize, and reason. In How Children Think and Learn (1998), David Wood points out: By reminding children we are helping them to bring to mind and exploit those aspects of their past experience that we (as experts) but not they (as novices) know to be relevant to what they are currently trying to do (p. Read more: Developmental Theory Vygotskian Theory Vygotsky, Mental, Children, and Child StateUniversity. com http://education. stateuniversity. com/pages/1912/Developmental-Theory-VYGOTSKIAN-THEORY. html#ixzz2t7TbJZuz Initiation Formal, informal and non formal education At around the same time there were moves in UNESCO toward lifelong education and notions of ‘the learning society‘ which culminated in Learning to Be (‘The Faure Report’, UNESCO 1972). Lifelong learning was to be the ‘master concept’ that should shape educational systems (UNESCO 1972:182). What emerged was an influential tripartite categorization of learning systems. It’s best known statement comes from the work of Combs with Prosser and Ahmed (1973): Formal education: the hierarchically structured, chronologically graded ‘education system’, running from primary school through the university and including, in addition to general academic studies, a variety of specialised programmes and institutions for full-time technical and professional training. Informal education: the truly lifelong process whereby every individual acquires attitudes, values, skills and knowledge from daily experience and the educative influences and resources in his or her environment – from family and neighbours, from work and play, from the market place, the library and the mass media. Non-formal education: any organised educational activity outside the established formal system – whether operating separately or as an important feature of some broader activity – that is intended to serve identifiable learning clienteles and learning objectives. The distinction made is largely administrative. Formal education is linked with schools and training institutions; non-formal with community groups and other organizations; and informal covers what is left, e. g. interactions with friends, family and work colleagues. (See, for example, Coombs and Ahmed 1974). The problem with this is that people often organize educational events as part of their everyday experience and so the lines blur rapidly. As Fordham (1993) comments, these definitions do not imply hard and fast categories. In particular, there may well be some overlap (and confusion) between the informal and the non-formal. Just how helpful a focus on administrative setting or institutional sponsorship is a matter of some debate. Once we recognize that a considerable amount of education happens beyond the school wall it may be that a simple division between formal and informal education will suffice. It has certainly been