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What Is Education For?

Read an excerpt from a new book by Sir Ken Robinson and Kate Robinson, which calls for redesigning education for the future.

What is education for? As it happens, people differ sharply on this question. It is what is known as an “essentially contested concept.” Like “democracy” and “justice,” “education” means different things to different people. Various factors can contribute to a person’s understanding of the purpose of education, including their background and circumstances. It is also inflected by how they view related issues such as ethnicity, gender, and social class. Still, not having an agreed-upon definition of education doesn’t mean we can’t discuss it or do anything about it.

We just need to be clear on terms. There are a few terms that are often confused or used interchangeably—“learning,” “education,” “training,” and “school”—but there are important differences between them. Learning is the process of acquiring new skills and understanding. Education is an organized system of learning. Training is a type of education that is focused on learning specific skills. A school is a community of learners: a group that comes together to learn with and from each other. It is vital that we differentiate these terms: children love to learn, they do it naturally; many have a hard time with education, and some have big problems with school.

There are many assumptions of compulsory education. One is that young people need to know, understand, and be able to do certain things that they most likely would not if they were left to their own devices. What these things are and how best to ensure students learn them are complicated and often controversial issues. Another assumption is that compulsory education is a preparation for what will come afterward, like getting a good job or going on to higher education.

So, what does it mean to be educated now? Well, I believe that education should expand our consciousness, capabilities, sensitivities, and cultural understanding. It should enlarge our worldview. As we all live in two worlds—the world within you that exists only because you do, and the world around you—the core purpose of education is to enable students to understand both worlds. In today’s climate, there is also a new and urgent challenge: to provide forms of education that engage young people with the global-economic issues of environmental well-being.

This core purpose of education can be broken down into four basic purposes.

Education should enable young people to engage with the world within them as well as the world around them. In Western cultures, there is a firm distinction between the two worlds, between thinking and feeling, objectivity and subjectivity. This distinction is misguided. There is a deep correlation between our experience of the world around us and how we feel. As we explored in the previous chapters, all individuals have unique strengths and weaknesses, outlooks and personalities. Students do not come in standard physical shapes, nor do their abilities and personalities. They all have their own aptitudes and dispositions and different ways of understanding things. Education is therefore deeply personal. It is about cultivating the minds and hearts of living people. Engaging them as individuals is at the heart of raising achievement.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights emphasizes that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” and that “Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.” Many of the deepest problems in current systems of education result from losing sight of this basic principle.

Schools should enable students to understand their own cultures and to respect the diversity of others. There are various definitions of culture, but in this context the most appropriate is “the values and forms of behavior that characterize different social groups.” To put it more bluntly, it is “the way we do things around here.” Education is one of the ways that communities pass on their values from one generation to the next. For some, education is a way of preserving a culture against outside influences. For others, it is a way of promoting cultural tolerance. As the world becomes more crowded and connected, it is becoming more complex culturally. Living respectfully with diversity is not just an ethical choice, it is a practical imperative.

There should be three cultural priorities for schools: to help students understand their own cultures, to understand other cultures, and to promote a sense of cultural tolerance and coexistence. The lives of all communities can be hugely enriched by celebrating their own cultures and the practices and traditions of other cultures.

Education should enable students to become economically responsible and independent. This is one of the reasons governments take such a keen interest in education: they know that an educated workforce is essential to creating economic prosperity. Leaders of the Industrial Revolution knew that education was critical to creating the types of workforce they required, too. But the world of work has changed so profoundly since then, and continues to do so at an ever-quickening pace. We know that many of the jobs of previous decades are disappearing and being rapidly replaced by contemporary counterparts. It is almost impossible to predict the direction of advancing technologies, and where they will take us.

How can schools prepare students to navigate this ever-changing economic landscape? They must connect students with their unique talents and interests, dissolve the division between academic and vocational programs, and foster practical partnerships between schools and the world of work, so that young people can experience working environments as part of their education, not simply when it is time for them to enter the labor market.

Education should enable young people to become active and compassionate citizens. We live in densely woven social systems. The benefits we derive from them depend on our working together to sustain them. The empowerment of individuals has to be balanced by practicing the values and responsibilities of collective life, and of democracy in particular. Our freedoms in democratic societies are not automatic. They come from centuries of struggle against tyranny and autocracy and those who foment sectarianism, hatred, and fear. Those struggles are far from over. As John Dewey observed, “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”

For a democratic society to function, it depends upon the majority of its people to be active within the democratic process. In many democracies, this is increasingly not the case. Schools should engage students in becoming active, and proactive, democratic participants. An academic civics course will scratch the surface, but to nurture a deeply rooted respect for democracy, it is essential to give young people real-life democratic experiences long before they come of age to vote.

Eight Core Competencies

The conventional curriculum is based on a collection of separate subjects. These are prioritized according to beliefs around the limited understanding of intelligence we discussed in the previous chapter, as well as what is deemed to be important later in life. The idea of “subjects” suggests that each subject, whether mathematics, science, art, or language, stands completely separate from all the other subjects. This is problematic. Mathematics, for example, is not defined only by propositional knowledge; it is a combination of types of knowledge, including concepts, processes, and methods as well as propositional knowledge. This is also true of science, art, and languages, and of all other subjects. It is therefore much more useful to focus on the concept of disciplines rather than subjects.

Disciplines are fluid; they constantly merge and collaborate. In focusing on disciplines rather than subjects we can also explore the concept of interdisciplinary learning. This is a much more holistic approach that mirrors real life more closely—it is rare that activities outside of school are as clearly segregated as conventional curriculums suggest. A journalist writing an article, for example, must be able to call upon skills of conversation, deductive reasoning, literacy, and social sciences. A surgeon must understand the academic concept of the patient’s condition, as well as the practical application of the appropriate procedure. At least, we would certainly hope this is the case should we find ourselves being wheeled into surgery.

The concept of disciplines brings us to a better starting point when planning the curriculum, which is to ask what students should know and be able to do as a result of their education. The four purposes above suggest eight core competencies that, if properly integrated into education, will equip students who leave school to engage in the economic, cultural, social, and personal challenges they will inevitably face in their lives. These competencies are curiosity, creativity, criticism, communication, collaboration, compassion, composure, and citizenship. Rather than be triggered by age, they should be interwoven from the beginning of a student’s educational journey and nurtured throughout.

From Imagine If: Creating a Future for Us All by Sir Ken Robinson, Ph.D and Kate Robinson, published by Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2022 by the Estate of Sir Kenneth Robinson and Kate Robinson.

The World Bank Group is the largest financier of education in the developing world, working in 94 countries and committed to helping them reach SDG4: access to inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030.

Education is a human right, a powerful driver of development, and one of the strongest instruments for reducing poverty and improving health, gender equality, peace, and stability. It delivers large, consistent returns in terms of income, and is the most important factor to ensure equity and inclusion.

For individuals, education promotes employment, earnings, health, and poverty reduction. Globally, there is a  9% increase in hourly earnings for every extra year of schooling . For societies, it drives long-term economic growth, spurs innovation, strengthens institutions, and fosters social cohesion.  Education is further a powerful catalyst to climate action through widespread behavior change and skilling for green transitions.

Developing countries have made tremendous progress in getting children into the classroom and more children worldwide are now in school. But learning is not guaranteed, as the  2018 World Development Report  (WDR) stressed.

Making smart and effective investments in people’s education is critical for developing the human capital that will end extreme poverty. At the core of this strategy is the need to tackle the learning crisis, put an end to  Learning Poverty , and help youth acquire the advanced cognitive, socioemotional, technical and digital skills they need to succeed in today’s world. 

In low- and middle-income countries, the share of children living in  Learning Poverty  (that is, the proportion of 10-year-old children that are unable to read and understand a short age-appropriate text) increased from 57% before the pandemic to an estimated  70%  in 2022.

However, learning is in crisis. More than 70 million more people were pushed into poverty during the COVID pandemic, a billion children lost a year of school , and three years later the learning losses suffered have not been recouped .  If a child cannot read with comprehension by age 10, they are unlikely to become fluent readers. They will fail to thrive later in school and will be unable to power their careers and economies once they leave school.

The effects of the pandemic are expected to be long-lasting. Analysis has already revealed deep losses, with international reading scores declining from 2016 to 2021 by more than a year of schooling.  These losses may translate to a 0.68 percentage point in global GDP growth.  The staggering effects of school closures reach beyond learning. This generation of children could lose a combined total of  US$21 trillion in lifetime earnings  in present value or the equivalent of 17% of today’s global GDP – a sharp rise from the 2021 estimate of a US$17 trillion loss. 

Action is urgently needed now – business as usual will not suffice to heal the scars of the pandemic and will not accelerate progress enough to meet the ambitions of SDG 4. We are urging governments to implement ambitious and aggressive Learning Acceleration Programs to get children back to school, recover lost learning, and advance progress by building better, more equitable and resilient education systems.

Last Updated: Mar 25, 2024

The World Bank’s global education strategy is centered on ensuring learning happens – for everyone, everywhere. Our vision is to ensure that everyone can achieve her or his full potential with access to a quality education and lifelong learning. To reach this, we are helping countries build foundational skills like literacy, numeracy, and socioemotional skills – the building blocks for all other learning. From early childhood to tertiary education and beyond – we help children and youth acquire the skills they need to thrive in school, the labor market and throughout their lives.

Investing in the world’s most precious resource – people – is paramount to ending poverty on a livable planet.  Our experience across more than 100 countries bears out this robust connection between human capital, quality of life, and economic growth: when countries strategically invest in people and the systems designed to protect and build human capital at scale, they unlock the wealth of nations and the potential of everyone.

Building on this, the World Bank supports resilient, equitable, and inclusive education systems that ensure learning happens for everyone. We do this by generating and disseminating evidence, ensuring alignment with policymaking processes, and bridging the gap between research and practice.

The World Bank is the largest source of external financing for education in developing countries, with a portfolio of about $26 billion in 94 countries including IBRD, IDA and Recipient-Executed Trust Funds. IDA operations comprise 62% of the education portfolio.

The investment in FCV settings has increased dramatically and now accounts for 26% of our portfolio.

World Bank projects reach at least 425 million students -one-third of students in low- and middle-income countries.

The World Bank’s Approach to Education

Five interrelated pillars of a well-functioning education system underpin the World Bank’s education policy approach:

• Learners are prepared and motivated to learn;
• Teachers are prepared, skilled, and motivated to facilitate learning and skills acquisition;
• Learning resources (including education technology) are available, relevant, and used to improve teaching and learning;
• Schools are safe and inclusive; and
• Education Systems are well-managed, with good implementation capacity and adequate financing.

The Bank is already helping governments design and implement cost-effective programs and tools to build these pillars.

Our Principles:

• We pursue systemic reform supported by political commitment to learning for all children. 
• We focus on equity and inclusion through a progressive path toward achieving universal access to quality education, including children and young adults in fragile or conflict affected areas , those in marginalized and rural communities,  girls and women , displaced populations,  students with disabilities , and other vulnerable groups.
• We focus on results and use evidence to keep improving policy by using metrics to guide improvements.   
• We want to ensure financial commitment commensurate with what is needed to provide basic services to all. 
• We invest wisely in technology so that education systems embrace and learn to harness technology to support their learning objectives.   

Laying the groundwork for the future

Country challenges vary, but there is a menu of options to build forward better, more resilient, and equitable education systems.

Countries are facing an education crisis that requires a two-pronged approach: first, supporting actions to recover lost time through remedial and accelerated learning; and, second, building on these investments for a more equitable, resilient, and effective system.

Recovering from the learning crisis must be a political priority, backed with adequate financing and the resolve to implement needed reforms.  Domestic financing for education over the last two years has not kept pace with the need to recover and accelerate learning. Across low- and lower-middle-income countries, the  average share of education in government budgets fell during the pandemic , and in 2022 it remained below 2019 levels.

The best chance for a better future is to invest in education and make sure each dollar is put toward improving learning.  In a time of fiscal pressure, protecting spending that yields long-run gains – like spending on education – will maximize impact.  We still need more and better funding for education.  Closing the learning gap will require increasing the level, efficiency, and equity of education spending—spending smarter is an imperative.

• Education technology  can be a powerful tool to implement these actions by supporting teachers, children, principals, and parents; expanding accessible digital learning platforms, including radio/ TV / Online learning resources; and using data to identify and help at-risk children, personalize learning, and improve service delivery.

Looking ahead

We must seize this opportunity  to reimagine education in bold ways. Together, we can build forward better more equitable, effective, and resilient education systems for the world’s children and youth.

Accelerating Improvements

Supporting countries in establishing time-bound learning targets and a focused education investment plan, outlining actions and investments geared to achieve these goals.

Launched in 2020, the  Accelerator Program  works with a set of countries to channel investments in education and to learn from each other. The program coordinates efforts across partners to ensure that the countries in the program show improvements in foundational skills at scale over the next three to five years. These investment plans build on the collective work of multiple partners, and leverage the latest evidence on what works, and how best to plan for implementation.  Countries such as Brazil (the state of Ceará) and Kenya have achieved dramatic reductions in learning poverty over the past decade at scale, providing useful lessons, even as they seek to build on their successes and address remaining and new challenges.  

Universalizing Foundational Literacy

Readying children for the future by supporting acquisition of foundational skills – which are the gateway to other skills and subjects.

The  Literacy Policy Package (LPP)   consists of interventions focused specifically on promoting acquisition of reading proficiency in primary school. These include assuring political and technical commitment to making all children literate; ensuring effective literacy instruction by supporting teachers; providing quality, age-appropriate books; teaching children first in the language they speak and understand best; and fostering children’s oral language abilities and love of books and reading.

Advancing skills through TVET and Tertiary

Ensuring that individuals have access to quality education and training opportunities and supporting links to employment.

Tertiary education and skills systems are a driver of major development agendas, including human capital, climate change, youth and women’s empowerment, and jobs and economic transformation. A comprehensive skill set to succeed in the 21st century labor market consists of foundational and higher order skills, socio-emotional skills, specialized skills, and digital skills. Yet most countries continue to struggle in delivering on the promise of skills development. 

The World Bank is supporting countries through efforts that address key challenges including improving access and completion, adaptability, quality, relevance, and efficiency of skills development programs. Our approach is via multiple channels including projects, global goods, as well as the Tertiary Education and Skills Program . Our recent reports including Building Better Formal TVET Systems and STEERing Tertiary Education provide a way forward for how to improve these critical systems.

Addressing Climate Change

Mainstreaming climate education and investing in green skills, research and innovation, and green infrastructure to spur climate action and foster better preparedness and resilience to climate shocks.

Our approach recognizes that education is critical for achieving effective, sustained climate action. At the same time, climate change is adversely impacting education outcomes. Investments in education can play a huge role in building climate resilience and advancing climate mitigation and adaptation. Climate change education gives young people greater awareness of climate risks and more access to tools and solutions for addressing these risks and managing related shocks. Technical and vocational education and training can also accelerate a green economic transformation by fostering green skills and innovation. Greening education infrastructure can help mitigate the impact of heat, pollution, and extreme weather on learning, while helping address climate change. 

Examples of this work are projects in Nigeria (life skills training for adolescent girls), Vietnam (fostering relevant scientific research) , and Bangladesh (constructing and retrofitting schools to serve as cyclone shelters).

Strengthening Measurement Systems

Enabling countries to gather and evaluate information on learning and its drivers more efficiently and effectively.

The World Bank supports initiatives to help countries effectively build and strengthen their measurement systems to facilitate evidence-based decision-making. Examples of this work include:

(1) The  Global Education Policy Dashboard (GEPD) : This tool offers a strong basis for identifying priorities for investment and policy reforms that are suited to each country context by focusing on the three dimensions of practices, policies, and politics.

• Highlights gaps between what the evidence suggests is effective in promoting learning and what is happening in practice in each system; and
• Allows governments to track progress as they act to close the gaps.

The GEPD has been implemented in 13 education systems already – Peru, Rwanda, Jordan, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Islamabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sierra Leone, Niger, Gabon, Jordan and Chad – with more expected by the end of 2024.

(2)  Learning Assessment Platform (LeAP) : LeAP is a one-stop shop for knowledge, capacity-building tools, support for policy dialogue, and technical staff expertise to support student achievement measurement and national assessments for better learning.

Supporting Successful Teachers

Helping systems develop the right selection, incentives, and support to the professional development of teachers.

Currently, the World Bank Education Global Practice has over 160 active projects supporting over 18 million teachers worldwide, about a third of the teacher population in low- and middle-income countries. In 12 countries alone, these projects cover 16 million teachers, including all primary school teachers in Ethiopia and Turkey, and over 80% in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

A World Bank-developed classroom observation tool, Teach, was designed to capture the quality of teaching in low- and middle-income countries. It is now 3.6 million students.

While Teach helps identify patterns in teacher performance, Coach leverages these insights to support teachers to improve their teaching practice through hands-on in-service teacher professional development (TPD).

Our recent report on Making Teacher Policy Work proposes a practical framework to uncover the black box of effective teacher policy and discusses the factors that enable their scalability and sustainability.

 Supporting Education Finance Systems

Strengthening country financing systems to mobilize resources for education and make better use of their investments in education.

Our approach is to bring together multi-sectoral expertise to engage with ministries of education and finance and other stakeholders to develop and implement effective and efficient public financial management systems; build capacity to monitor and evaluate education spending, identify financing bottlenecks, and develop interventions to strengthen financing systems; build the evidence base on global spending patterns and the magnitude and causes of spending inefficiencies; and develop diagnostic tools as public goods to support country efforts.

Working in Fragile, Conflict, and Violent (FCV) Contexts

The massive and growing global challenge of having so many children living in conflict and violent situations requires a response at the same scale and scope. Our education engagement in the Fragility, Conflict and Violence (FCV) context, which stands at US$5.35 billion, has grown rapidly in recent years, reflecting the ever-increasing importance of the FCV agenda in education. Indeed, these projects now account for more than 25% of the World Bank education portfolio.

Education is crucial to minimizing the effects of fragility and displacement on the welfare of youth and children in the short-term and preventing the emergence of violent conflict in the long-term. 

Support to Countries Throughout the Education Cycle

Our support to countries covers the entire learning cycle, to help shape resilient, equitable, and inclusive education systems that ensure learning happens for everyone. 

The ongoing  Supporting  Egypt  Education Reform project , 2018-2025, supports transformational reforms of the Egyptian education system, by improving teaching and learning conditions in public schools. The World Bank has invested $500 million in the project focused on increasing access to quality kindergarten, enhancing the capacity of teachers and education leaders, developing a reliable student assessment system, and introducing the use of modern technology for teaching and learning. Specifically, the share of Egyptian 10-year-old students, who could read and comprehend at the global minimum proficiency level, increased to 45 percent in 2021.

In  Nigeria , the $75 million  Edo  Basic Education Sector and Skills Transformation (EdoBESST)  project, running from 2020-2024, is focused on improving teaching and learning in basic education. Under the project, which covers 97 percent of schools in the state, there is a strong focus on incorporating digital technologies for teachers. They were equipped with handheld tablets with structured lesson plans for their classes. Their coaches use classroom observation tools to provide individualized feedback. Teacher absence has reduced drastically because of the initiative. Over 16,000 teachers were trained through the project, and the introduction of technology has also benefited students.

Through the $235 million  School Sector Development Program  in  Nepal  (2017-2022), the number of children staying in school until Grade 12 nearly tripled, and the number of out-of-school children fell by almost seven percent. During the pandemic, innovative approaches were needed to continue education. Mobile phone penetration is high in the country. More than four in five households in Nepal have mobile phones. The project supported an educational service that made it possible for children with phones to connect to local radio that broadcast learning programs.

From 2017-2023, the $50 million  Strengthening of State Universities  in  Chile  project has made strides to improve quality and equity at state universities. The project helped reduce dropout: the third-year dropout rate fell by almost 10 percent from 2018-2022, keeping more students in school.

The World Bank’s first  Program-for-Results financing in education  was through a $202 million project in  Tanzania , that ran from 2013-2021. The project linked funding to results and aimed to improve education quality. It helped build capacity, and enhanced effectiveness and efficiency in the education sector. Through the project, learning outcomes significantly improved alongside an unprecedented expansion of access to education for children in Tanzania. From 2013-2019, an additional 1.8 million students enrolled in primary schools. In 2019, the average reading speed for Grade 2 students rose to 22.3 words per minute, up from 17.3 in 2017. The project laid the foundation for the ongoing $500 million  BOOST project , which supports over 12 million children to enroll early, develop strong foundational skills, and complete a quality education.

The $40 million  Cambodia  Secondary Education Improvement project , which ran from 2017-2022, focused on strengthening school-based management, upgrading teacher qualifications, and building classrooms in Cambodia, to improve learning outcomes, and reduce student dropout at the secondary school level. The project has directly benefited almost 70,000 students in 100 target schools, and approximately 2,000 teachers and 600 school administrators received training.

The World Bank is co-financing the $152.80 million  Yemen  Restoring Education and Learning Emergency project , running from 2020-2024, which is implemented through UNICEF, WFP, and Save the Children. It is helping to maintain access to basic education for many students, improve learning conditions in schools, and is working to strengthen overall education sector capacity. In the time of crisis, the project is supporting teacher payments and teacher training, school meals, school infrastructure development, and the distribution of learning materials and school supplies. To date, almost 600,000 students have benefited from these interventions.

The $87 million  Providing an Education of Quality in  Haiti  project supported approximately 380 schools in the Southern region of Haiti from 2016-2023. Despite a highly challenging context of political instability and recurrent natural disasters, the project successfully supported access to education for students. The project provided textbooks, fresh meals, and teacher training support to 70,000 students, 3,000 teachers, and 300 school directors. It gave tuition waivers to 35,000 students in 118 non-public schools. The project also repaired 19 national schools damaged by the 2021 earthquake, which gave 5,500 students safe access to their schools again.

In 2013, just 5% of the poorest households in  Uzbekistan  had children enrolled in preschools. Thanks to the  Improving Pre-Primary and General Secondary Education Project , by July 2019, around 100,000 children will have benefitted from the half-day program in 2,420 rural kindergartens, comprising around 49% of all preschool educational institutions, or over 90% of rural kindergartens in the country.

In addition to working closely with governments in our client countries, the World Bank also works at the global, regional, and local levels with a range of technical partners, including foundations, non-profit organizations, bilaterals, and other multilateral organizations. Some examples of our most recent global partnerships include:

UNICEF, UNESCO, FCDO, USAID, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:  Coalition for Foundational Learning

The World Bank is working closely with UNICEF, UNESCO, FCDO, USAID, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as the  Coalition for Foundational Learning  to advocate and provide technical support to ensure foundational learning.  The World Bank works with these partners to promote and endorse the  Commitment to Action on Foundational Learning , a global network of countries committed to halving the global share of children unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10 by 2030.

Australian Aid, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Canada, Echida Giving, FCDO, German Cooperation, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, Conrad Hilton Foundation, LEGO Foundation, Porticus, USAID: Early Learning Partnership

The Early Learning Partnership (ELP) is a multi-donor trust fund, housed at the World Bank.  ELP leverages World Bank strengths—a global presence, access to policymakers and strong technical analysis—to improve early learning opportunities and outcomes for young children around the world.

We help World Bank teams and countries get the information they need to make the case to invest in Early Childhood Development (ECD), design effective policies and deliver impactful programs. At the country level, ELP grants provide teams with resources for early seed investments that can generate large financial commitments through World Bank finance and government resources. At the global level, ELP research and special initiatives work to fill knowledge gaps, build capacity and generate public goods.

UNESCO, UNICEF:  Learning Data Compact

UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank have joined forces to close the learning data gaps that still exist and that preclude many countries from monitoring the quality of their education systems and assessing if their students are learning. The three organizations have agreed to a  Learning Data Compact , a commitment to ensure that all countries, especially low-income countries, have at least one quality measure of learning by 2025, supporting coordinated efforts to strengthen national assessment systems.

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS):   Learning Poverty Indicator

Aimed at measuring and urging attention to foundational literacy as a prerequisite to achieve SDG4, this partnership was launched in 2019 to help countries strengthen their learning assessment systems, better monitor what students are learning in internationally comparable ways and improve the breadth and quality of global data on education.

FCDO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:  EdTech Hub

Supported by the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the EdTech Hub is aimed at improving the quality of ed-tech investments. The Hub launched a rapid response Helpdesk service to provide just-in-time advisory support to 70 low- and middle-income countries planning education technology and remote learning initiatives.

MasterCard Foundation

Our Tertiary Education and Skills  global program, launched with support from the Mastercard Foundation, aims to prepare youth and adults for the future of work and society by improving access to relevant, quality, equitable reskilling and post-secondary education opportunities.  It is designed to reframe, reform, and rebuild tertiary education and skills systems for the digital and green transformation.

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Areas of focus.

Digital Technologies

Early Childhood Development

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Education Finance

Education in Fragile, Conflict & Violence Contexts

Girls’ Education

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The Role of Education in Development

• First Online: 30 August 2019

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• Tristan McCowan 6  

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Global Higher Education ((PSGHE))

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Understanding the role of education in development is highly complex, on account of the slippery nature of both concepts, and the multifaceted relationship between them. This chapter provides a conceptual exploration of these relationships, laying the groundwork for the rest of the book. First, it assesses the role of education as a driver of development, including aspects of economic growth, basic needs and political participation. Second, it looks at the constitutive perspective, involving education as national status, human right and human development. Finally, it assesses the ‘other face’ of education and its negative impacts, as well as the specificities of higher education in relation to other levels.

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McCowan, T. (2019). The Role of Education in Development. In: Higher Education for and beyond the Sustainable Development Goals. Palgrave Studies in Global Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19597-7_2

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Philosophy of Education

Philosophy of education is the branch of applied or practical philosophy concerned with the nature and aims of education and the philosophical problems arising from educational theory and practice. Because that practice is ubiquitous in and across human societies, its social and individual manifestations so varied, and its influence so profound, the subject is wide-ranging, involving issues in ethics and social/political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and language, and other areas of philosophy. Because it looks both inward to the parent discipline and outward to educational practice and the social, legal, and institutional contexts in which it takes place, philosophy of education concerns itself with both sides of the traditional theory/practice divide. Its subject matter includes both basic philosophical issues (e.g., the nature of the knowledge worth teaching, the character of educational equality and justice, etc.) and problems concerning specific educational policies and practices (e.g., the desirability of standardized curricula and testing, the social, economic, legal and moral dimensions of specific funding arrangements, the justification of curriculum decisions, etc.). In all this the philosopher of education prizes conceptual clarity, argumentative rigor, the fair-minded consideration of the interests of all involved in or affected by educational efforts and arrangements, and informed and well-reasoned valuation of educational aims and interventions.

Philosophy of education has a long and distinguished history in the Western philosophical tradition, from Socrates’ battles with the sophists to the present day. Many of the most distinguished figures in that tradition incorporated educational concerns into their broader philosophical agendas (Curren 2000, 2018; Rorty 1998). While that history is not the focus here, it is worth noting that the ideals of reasoned inquiry championed by Socrates and his descendants have long informed the view that education should foster in all students, to the extent possible, the disposition to seek reasons and the ability to evaluate them cogently, and to be guided by their evaluations in matters of belief, action and judgment. This view, that education centrally involves the fostering of reason or rationality, has with varying articulations and qualifications been embraced by most of those historical figures; it continues to be defended by contemporary philosophers of education as well (Scheffler 1973 [1989]; Siegel 1988, 1997, 2007, 2017). As with any philosophical thesis it is controversial; some dimensions of the controversy are explored below.

This entry is a selective survey of important contemporary work in Anglophone philosophy of education; it does not treat in detail recent scholarship outside that context.

1. Problems in Delineating the Field

2. analytic philosophy of education and its influence, 3.1 the content of the curriculum and the aims and functions of schooling, 3.2 social, political and moral philosophy, 3.3 social epistemology, virtue epistemology, and the epistemology of education, 3.4 philosophical disputes concerning empirical education research, 4. concluding remarks, other internet resources, related entries.

The inward/outward looking nature of the field of philosophy of education alluded to above makes the task of delineating the field, of giving an over-all picture of the intellectual landscape, somewhat complicated (for a detailed account of this topography, see Phillips 1985, 2010). Suffice it to say that some philosophers, as well as focusing inward on the abstract philosophical issues that concern them, are drawn outwards to discuss or comment on issues that are more commonly regarded as falling within the purview of professional educators, educational researchers, policy-makers and the like. (An example is Michael Scriven, who in his early career was a prominent philosopher of science; later he became a central figure in the development of the field of evaluation of educational and social programs. See Scriven 1991a, 1991b.) At the same time, there are professionals in the educational or closely related spheres who are drawn to discuss one or another of the philosophical issues that they encounter in the course of their work. (An example here is the behaviorist psychologist B.F. Skinner, the central figure in the development of operant conditioning and programmed learning, who in works such as Walden Two (1948) and Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1972) grappled—albeit controversially—with major philosophical issues that were related to his work.)

What makes the field even more amorphous is the existence of works on educational topics, written by well-regarded philosophers who have made major contributions to their discipline; these educational reflections have little or no philosophical content, illustrating the truth that philosophers do not always write philosophy. However, despite this, works in this genre have often been treated as contributions to philosophy of education. (Examples include John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education [1693] and Bertrand Russell’s rollicking pieces written primarily to raise funds to support a progressive school he ran with his wife. (See Park 1965.)

Finally, as indicated earlier, the domain of education is vast, the issues it raises are almost overwhelmingly numerous and are of great complexity, and the social significance of the field is second to none. These features make the phenomena and problems of education of great interest to a wide range of socially-concerned intellectuals, who bring with them their own favored conceptual frameworks—concepts, theories and ideologies, methods of analysis and argumentation, metaphysical and other assumptions, and the like. It is not surprising that scholars who work in this broad genre also find a home in the field of philosophy of education.

As a result of these various factors, the significant intellectual and social trends of the past few centuries, together with the significant developments in philosophy, all have had an impact on the content of arguments and methods of argumentation in philosophy of education—Marxism, psycho-analysis, existentialism, phenomenology, positivism, post-modernism, pragmatism, neo-liberalism, the several waves of feminism, analytic philosophy in both its ordinary language and more formal guises, are merely the tip of the iceberg.

Conceptual analysis, careful assessment of arguments, the rooting out of ambiguity, the drawing of clarifying distinctions—all of which are at least part of the philosophical toolkit—have been respected activities within philosophy from the dawn of the field. No doubt it somewhat over-simplifies the complex path of intellectual history to suggest that what happened in the twentieth century—early on, in the home discipline itself, and with a lag of a decade or more in philosophy of education—is that philosophical analysis came to be viewed by some scholars as being the major philosophical activity (or set of activities), or even as being the only viable or reputable activity. In any case, as they gained prominence and for a time hegemonic influence during the rise of analytic philosophy early in the twentieth century analytic techniques came to dominate philosophy of education in the middle third of that century (Curren, Robertson, & Hager 2003).

The pioneering work in the modern period entirely in an analytic mode was the short monograph by C.D. Hardie, Truth and Fallacy in Educational Theory (1941; reissued in 1962). In his Introduction, Hardie (who had studied with C.D. Broad and I.A. Richards) made it clear that he was putting all his eggs into the ordinary-language-analysis basket:

The Cambridge analytical school, led by Moore, Broad and Wittgenstein, has attempted so to analyse propositions that it will always be apparent whether the disagreement between philosophers is one concerning matters of fact, or is one concerning the use of words, or is, as is frequently the case, a purely emotive one. It is time, I think, that a similar attitude became common in the field of educational theory. (Hardie 1962: xix)

About a decade after the end of the Second World War the floodgates opened and a stream of work in the analytic mode appeared; the following is merely a sample. D. J. O’Connor published An Introduction to Philosophy of Education (1957) in which, among other things, he argued that the word “theory” as it is used in educational contexts is merely a courtesy title, for educational theories are nothing like what bear this title in the natural sciences. Israel Scheffler, who became the paramount philosopher of education in North America, produced a number of important works including The Language of Education (1960), which contained clarifying and influential analyses of definitions (he distinguished reportive, stipulative, and programmatic types) and the logic of slogans (often these are literally meaningless, and, he argued, should be seen as truncated arguments), Conditions of Knowledge (1965), still the best introduction to the epistemological side of philosophy of education, and Reason and Teaching (1973 [1989]), which in a wide-ranging and influential series of essays makes the case for regarding the fostering of rationality/critical thinking as a fundamental educational ideal (cf. Siegel 2016). B. O. Smith and R. H. Ennis edited the volume Language and Concepts in Education (1961); and R.D. Archambault edited Philosophical Analysis and Education (1965), consisting of essays by a number of prominent British writers, most notably R. S. Peters (whose status in Britain paralleled that of Scheffler in the United States), Paul Hirst, and John Wilson. Topics covered in the Archambault volume were typical of those that became the “bread and butter” of analytic philosophy of education (APE) throughout the English-speaking world—education as a process of initiation, liberal education, the nature of knowledge, types of teaching, and instruction versus indoctrination.

Among the most influential products of APE was the analysis developed by Hirst and Peters (1970) and Peters (1973) of the concept of education itself. Using as a touchstone “normal English usage,” it was concluded that a person who has been educated (rather than instructed or indoctrinated) has been (i) changed for the better; (ii) this change has involved the acquisition of knowledge and intellectual skills and the development of understanding; and (iii) the person has come to care for, or be committed to, the domains of knowledge and skill into which he or she has been initiated. The method used by Hirst and Peters comes across clearly in their handling of the analogy with the concept of “reform”, one they sometimes drew upon for expository purposes. A criminal who has been reformed has changed for the better, and has developed a commitment to the new mode of life (if one or other of these conditions does not hold, a speaker of standard English would not say the criminal has been reformed). Clearly the analogy with reform breaks down with respect to the knowledge and understanding conditions. Elsewhere Peters developed the fruitful notion of “education as initiation”.

The concept of indoctrination was also of great interest to analytic philosophers of education, for, it was argued, getting clear about precisely what constitutes indoctrination also would serve to clarify the border that demarcates it from acceptable educational processes. Thus, whether or not an instructional episode was a case of indoctrination was determined by the content taught, the intention of the instructor, the methods of instruction used, the outcomes of the instruction, or by some combination of these. Adherents of the different analyses used the same general type of argument to make their case, namely, appeal to normal and aberrant usage. Unfortunately, ordinary language analysis did not lead to unanimity of opinion about where this border was located, and rival analyses of the concept were put forward (Snook 1972). The danger of restricting analysis to ordinary language (“normal English usage”) was recognized early on by Scheffler, whose preferred view of analysis emphasized

first, its greater sophistication as regards language, and the interpenetration of language and inquiry, second, its attempt to follow the modern example of the sciences in empirical spirit, in rigor, in attention to detail, in respect for alternatives, and in objectivity of method, and third, its use of techniques of symbolic logic brought to full development only in the last fifty years… It is…this union of scientific spirit and logical method applied toward the clarification of basic ideas that characterizes current analytic philosophy [and that ought to characterize analytic philosophy of education]. (Scheffler 1973 [1989: 9–10])

After a period of dominance, for a number of important reasons the influence of APE went into decline. First, there were growing criticisms that the work of analytic philosophers of education had become focused upon minutiae and in the main was bereft of practical import. (It is worth noting that a 1966 article in Time , reprinted in Lucas 1969, had put forward the same criticism of mainstream philosophy.) Second, in the early 1970’s radical students in Britain accused Peters’ brand of linguistic analysis of conservatism, and of tacitly giving support to “traditional values”—they raised the issue of whose English usage was being analyzed?

Third, criticisms of language analysis in mainstream philosophy had been mounting for some time, and finally after a lag of many years were reaching the attention of philosophers of education; there even had been a surprising degree of interest on the part of the general reading public in the United Kingdom as early as 1959, when Gilbert Ryle, editor of the journal Mind , refused to commission a review of Ernest Gellner’s Words and Things (1959)—a detailed and quite acerbic critique of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and its espousal of ordinary language analysis. (Ryle argued that Gellner’s book was too insulting, a view that drew Bertrand Russell into the fray on Gellner’s side—in the daily press, no less; Russell produced a list of insulting remarks drawn from the work of great philosophers of the past. See Mehta 1963.)

Richard Peters had been given warning that all was not well with APE at a conference in Canada in 1966; after delivering a paper on “The aims of education: A conceptual inquiry” that was based on ordinary language analysis, a philosopher in the audience (William Dray) asked Peters “ whose concepts do we analyze?” Dray went on to suggest that different people, and different groups within society, have different concepts of education. Five years before the radical students raised the same issue, Dray pointed to the possibility that what Peters had presented under the guise of a “logical analysis” was nothing but the favored usage of a certain class of persons—a class that Peters happened to identify with (see Peters 1973, where to the editor’s credit the interaction with Dray is reprinted).

Fourth, during the decade of the seventies when these various critiques of analytic philosophy were in the process of eroding its luster, a spate of translations from the Continent stimulated some philosophers of education in Britain and North America to set out in new directions, and to adopt a new style of writing and argumentation. Key works by Gadamer, Foucault and Derrida appeared in English, and these were followed in 1984 by Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition . The classic works of Heidegger and Husserl also found new admirers; and feminist philosophers of education were finding their voices—Maxine Greene published a number of pieces in the 1970s and 1980s, including The Dialectic of Freedom (1988); the influential book by Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education , appeared the same year as the work by Lyotard, followed a year later by Jane Roland Martin’s Reclaiming a Conversation . In more recent years all these trends have continued. APE was and is no longer the center of interest, although, as indicated below, it still retains its voice.

3. Areas of Contemporary Activity

As was stressed at the outset, the field of education is huge and contains within it a virtually inexhaustible number of issues that are of philosophical interest. To attempt comprehensive coverage of how philosophers of education have been working within this thicket would be a quixotic task for a large single volume and is out of the question for a solitary encyclopedia entry. Nevertheless, a valiant attempt to give an overview was made in A Companion to the Philosophy of Education (Curren 2003), which contains more than six-hundred pages divided into forty-five chapters each of which surveys a subfield of work. The following random selection of chapter topics gives a sense of the enormous scope of the field: Sex education, special education, science education, aesthetic education, theories of teaching and learning, religious education, knowledge, truth and learning, cultivating reason, the measurement of learning, multicultural education, education and the politics of identity, education and standards of living, motivation and classroom management, feminism, critical theory, postmodernism, romanticism, the purposes of universities, affirmative action in higher education, and professional education. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education (Siegel 2009) contains a similarly broad range of articles on (among other things) the epistemic and moral aims of education, liberal education and its imminent demise, thinking and reasoning, fallibilism and fallibility, indoctrination, authenticity, the development of rationality, Socratic teaching, educating the imagination, caring and empathy in moral education, the limits of moral education, the cultivation of character, values education, curriculum and the value of knowledge, education and democracy, art and education, science education and religious toleration, constructivism and scientific methods, multicultural education, prejudice, authority and the interests of children, and on pragmatist, feminist, and postmodernist approaches to philosophy of education.

Given this enormous range, there is no non-arbitrary way to select a small number of topics for further discussion, nor can the topics that are chosen be pursued in great depth. The choice of those below has been made with an eye to highlighting contemporary work that makes solid contact with and contributes to important discussions in general philosophy and/or the academic educational and educational research communities.

The issue of what should be taught to students at all levels of education—the issue of curriculum content—obviously is a fundamental one, and it is an extraordinarily difficult one with which to grapple. In tackling it, care needs to be taken to distinguish between education and schooling—for although education can occur in schools, so can mis-education, and many other things can take place there that are educationally orthogonal (such as the provision of free or subsidized lunches and the development of social networks); and it also must be recognized that education can occur in the home, in libraries and museums, in churches and clubs, in solitary interaction with the public media, and the like.

In developing a curriculum (whether in a specific subject area, or more broadly as the whole range of offerings in an educational institution or system), a number of difficult decisions need to be made. Issues such as the proper ordering or sequencing of topics in the chosen subject, the time to be allocated to each topic, the lab work or excursions or projects that are appropriate for particular topics, can all be regarded as technical issues best resolved either by educationists who have a depth of experience with the target age group or by experts in the psychology of learning and the like. But there are deeper issues, ones concerning the validity of the justifications that have been given for including/excluding particular subjects or topics in the offerings of formal educational institutions. (Why should evolution or creation “science” be included, or excluded, as a topic within the standard high school subject Biology? Is the justification that is given for teaching Economics in some schools coherent and convincing? Do the justifications for including/excluding materials on birth control, patriotism, the Holocaust or wartime atrocities in the curriculum in some school districts stand up to critical scrutiny?)

The different justifications for particular items of curriculum content that have been put forward by philosophers and others since Plato’s pioneering efforts all draw, explicitly or implicitly, upon the positions that the respective theorists hold about at least three sets of issues.

First, what are the aims and/or functions of education (aims and functions are not necessarily the same)? Many aims have been proposed; a short list includes the production of knowledge and knowledgeable students, the fostering of curiosity and inquisitiveness, the enhancement of understanding, the enlargement of the imagination, the civilizing of students, the fostering of rationality and/or autonomy, and the development in students of care, concern and associated dispositions and attitudes (see Siegel 2007 for a longer list). The justifications offered for all such aims have been controversial, and alternative justifications of a single proposed aim can provoke philosophical controversy. Consider the aim of autonomy. Aristotle asked, what constitutes the good life and/or human flourishing, such that education should foster these (Curren 2013)? These two formulations are related, for it is arguable that our educational institutions should aim to equip individuals to pursue this good life—although this is not obvious, both because it is not clear that there is one conception of the good or flourishing life that is the good or flourishing life for everyone, and it is not clear that this is a question that should be settled in advance rather than determined by students for themselves. Thus, for example, if our view of human flourishing includes the capacity to think and act autonomously, then the case can be made that educational institutions—and their curricula—should aim to prepare, or help to prepare, autonomous individuals. A rival justification of the aim of autonomy, associated with Kant, champions the educational fostering of autonomy not on the basis of its contribution to human flourishing, but rather the obligation to treat students with respect as persons (Scheffler 1973 [1989]; Siegel 1988). Still others urge the fostering of autonomy on the basis of students’ fundamental interests, in ways that draw upon both Aristotelian and Kantian conceptual resources (Brighouse 2005, 2009). It is also possible to reject the fostering of autonomy as an educational aim (Hand 2006).

Assuming that the aim can be justified, how students should be helped to become autonomous or develop a conception of the good life and pursue it is of course not immediately obvious, and much philosophical ink has been spilled on the general question of how best to determine curriculum content. One influential line of argument was developed by Paul Hirst, who argued that knowledge is essential for developing and then pursuing a conception of the good life, and because logical analysis shows, he argued, that there are seven basic forms of knowledge, the case can be made that the function of the curriculum is to introduce students to each of these forms (Hirst 1965; see Phillips 1987: ch. 11). Another, suggested by Scheffler, is that curriculum content should be selected so as “to help the learner attain maximum self-sufficiency as economically as possible.” The relevant sorts of economy include those of resources, teacher effort, student effort, and the generalizability or transfer value of content, while the self-sufficiency in question includes

self-awareness, imaginative weighing of alternative courses of action, understanding of other people’s choices and ways of life, decisiveness without rigidity, emancipation from stereotyped ways of thinking and perceiving…empathy… intuition, criticism and independent judgment. (Scheffler 1973 [1989: 123–5])

Both impose important constraints on the curricular content to be taught.

Second, is it justifiable to treat the curriculum of an educational institution as a vehicle for furthering the socio-political interests and goals of a dominant group, or any particular group, including one’s own; and relatedly, is it justifiable to design the curriculum so that it serves as an instrument of control or of social engineering? In the closing decades of the twentieth century there were numerous discussions of curriculum theory, particularly from Marxist and postmodern perspectives, that offered the sobering analysis that in many educational systems, including those in Western democracies, the curriculum did indeed reflect and serve the interests of powerful cultural elites. What to do about this situation (if it is indeed the situation of contemporary educational institutions) is far from clear and is the focus of much work at the interface of philosophy of education and social/political philosophy, some of which is discussed in the next section. A closely related question is this: ought educational institutions be designed to further pre-determined social ends, or rather to enable students to competently evaluate all such ends? Scheffler argued that we should opt for the latter: we must

surrender the idea of shaping or molding the mind of the pupil. The function of education…is rather to liberate the mind, strengthen its critical powers, [and] inform it with knowledge and the capacity for independent inquiry. (Scheffler 1973 [1989: 139])

Third, should educational programs at the elementary and secondary levels be made up of a number of disparate offerings, so that individuals with different interests and abilities and affinities for learning can pursue curricula that are suitable? Or should every student pursue the same curriculum as far as each is able?—a curriculum, it should be noted, that in past cases nearly always was based on the needs or interests of those students who were academically inclined or were destined for elite social roles. Mortimer Adler and others in the late twentieth century sometimes used the aphorism “the best education for the best is the best education for all.”

The thinking here can be explicated in terms of the analogy of an out-of-control virulent disease, for which there is only one type of medicine available; taking a large dose of this medicine is extremely beneficial, and the hope is that taking only a little—while less effective—is better than taking none at all. Medically, this is dubious, while the educational version—forcing students to work, until they exit the system, on topics that do not interest them and for which they have no facility or motivation—has even less merit. (For a critique of Adler and his Paideia Proposal , see Noddings 2015.) It is interesting to compare the modern “one curriculum track for all” position with Plato’s system outlined in the Republic , according to which all students—and importantly this included girls—set out on the same course of study. Over time, as they moved up the educational ladder it would become obvious that some had reached the limit imposed upon them by nature, and they would be directed off into appropriate social roles in which they would find fulfillment, for their abilities would match the demands of these roles. Those who continued on with their education would eventually become members of the ruling class of Guardians.

The publication of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in 1971 was the most notable event in the history of political philosophy over the last century. The book spurred a period of ferment in political philosophy that included, among other things, new research on educationally fundamental themes. The principles of justice in educational distribution have perhaps been the dominant theme in this literature, and Rawls’s influence on its development has been pervasive.

Rawls’s theory of justice made so-called “fair equality of opportunity” one of its constitutive principles. Fair equality of opportunity entailed that the distribution of education would not put the children of those who currently occupied coveted social positions at any competitive advantage over other, equally talented and motivated children seeking the qualifications for those positions (Rawls 1971: 72–75). Its purpose was to prevent socio-economic differences from hardening into social castes that were perpetuated across generations. One obvious criticism of fair equality of opportunity is that it does not prohibit an educational distribution that lavished resources on the most talented children while offering minimal opportunities to others. So long as untalented students from wealthy families were assigned opportunities no better than those available to their untalented peers among the poor, no breach of the principle would occur. Even the most moderate egalitarians might find such a distributive regime to be intuitively repugnant.

Repugnance might be mitigated somewhat by the ways in which the overall structure of Rawls’s conception of justice protects the interests of those who fare badly in educational competition. All citizens must enjoy the same basic liberties, and equal liberty always has moral priority over equal opportunity: the former can never be compromised to advance the latter. Further, inequality in the distribution of income and wealth are permitted only to the degree that it serves the interests of the least advantaged group in society. But even with these qualifications, fair equality of opportunity is arguably less than really fair to anyone. The fact that their education should secure ends other than access to the most selective social positions—ends such as artistic appreciation, the kind of self-knowledge that humanistic study can furnish, or civic virtue—is deemed irrelevant according to Rawls’s principle. But surely it is relevant, given that a principle of educational justice must be responsive to the full range of educationally important goods.

Suppose we revise our account of the goods included in educational distribution so that aesthetic appreciation, say, and the necessary understanding and virtue for conscientious citizenship count for just as much as job-related skills. An interesting implication of doing so is that the rationale for requiring equality under any just distribution becomes decreasingly clear. That is because job-related skills are positional whereas the other educational goods are not (Hollis 1982). If you and I both aspire to a career in business management for which we are equally qualified, any increase in your job-related skills is a corresponding disadvantage to me unless I can catch up. Positional goods have a competitive structure by definition, though the ends of civic or aesthetic education do not fit that structure. If you and I aspire to be good citizens and are equal in civic understanding and virtue, an advance in your civic education is no disadvantage to me. On the contrary, it is easier to be a good citizen the better other citizens learn to be. At the very least, so far as non-positional goods figure in our conception of what counts as a good education, the moral stakes of inequality are thereby lowered.

In fact, an emerging alternative to fair equality of opportunity is a principle that stipulates some benchmark of adequacy in achievement or opportunity as the relevant standard of distribution. But it is misleading to represent this as a contrast between egalitarian and sufficientarian conceptions. Philosophically serious interpretations of adequacy derive from the ideal of equal citizenship (Satz 2007; Anderson 2007). Then again, fair equality of opportunity in Rawls’s theory is derived from a more fundamental ideal of equality among citizens. This was arguably true in A Theory of Justice but it is certainly true in his later work (Dworkin 1977: 150–183; Rawls 1993). So, both Rawls’s principle and the emerging alternative share an egalitarian foundation. The debate between adherents of equal opportunity and those misnamed as sufficientarians is certainly not over (e.g., Brighouse & Swift 2009; Jacobs 2010; Warnick 2015). Further progress will likely hinge on explicating the most compelling conception of the egalitarian foundation from which distributive principles are to be inferred. Another Rawls-inspired alternative is that a “prioritarian” distribution of achievement or opportunity might turn out to be the best principle we can come up with—i.e., one that favors the interests of the least advantaged students (Schouten 2012).

The publication of Rawls’s Political Liberalism in 1993 signaled a decisive turning point in his thinking about justice. In his earlier book, the theory of justice had been presented as if it were universally valid. But Rawls had come to think that any theory of justice presented as such was open to reasonable rejection. A more circumspect approach to justification would seek grounds for justice as fairness in an overlapping consensus between the many reasonable values and doctrines that thrive in a democratic political culture. Rawls argued that such a culture is informed by a shared ideal of free and equal citizenship that provided a new, distinctively democratic framework for justifying a conception of justice. The shift to political liberalism involved little revision on Rawls’s part to the content of the principles he favored. But the salience it gave to questions about citizenship in the fabric of liberal political theory had important educational implications. How was the ideal of free and equal citizenship to be instantiated in education in a way that accommodated the range of reasonable values and doctrines encompassed in an overlapping consensus? Political Liberalism has inspired a range of answers to that question (cf. Callan 1997; Clayton 2006; Bull 2008).

Other philosophers besides Rawls in the 1990s took up a cluster of questions about civic education, and not always from a liberal perspective. Alasdair Macintyre’s After Virtue (1984) strongly influenced the development of communitarian political theory which, as its very name might suggest, argued that the cultivation of community could preempt many of the problems with conflicting individual rights at the core of liberalism. As a full-standing alternative to liberalism, communitarianism might have little to recommend it. But it was a spur for liberal philosophers to think about how communities could be built and sustained to support the more familiar projects of liberal politics (e.g., Strike 2010). Furthermore, its arguments often converged with those advanced by feminist exponents of the ethic of care (Noddings 1984; Gilligan 1982). Noddings’ work is particularly notable because she inferred a cogent and radical agenda for the reform of schools from her conception of care (Noddings 1992).

One persistent controversy in citizenship theory has been about whether patriotism is correctly deemed a virtue, given our obligations to those who are not our fellow citizens in an increasingly interdependent world and the sordid history of xenophobia with which modern nation states are associated. The controversy is partly about what we should teach in our schools and is commonly discussed by philosophers in that context (Galston 1991; Ben-Porath 2006; Callan 2006; Miller 2007; Curren & Dorn 2018). The controversy is related to a deeper and more pervasive question about how morally or intellectually taxing the best conception of our citizenship should be. The more taxing it is, the more constraining its derivative conception of civic education will be. Contemporary political philosophers offer divergent arguments about these matters. For example, Gutmann and Thompson claim that citizens of diverse democracies need to “understand the diverse ways of life of their fellow citizens” (Gutmann & Thompson 1996: 66). The need arises from the obligation of reciprocity which they (like Rawls) believe to be integral to citizenship. Because I must seek to cooperate with others politically on terms that make sense from their moral perspective as well as my own, I must be ready to enter that perspective imaginatively so as to grasp its distinctive content. Many such perspectives prosper in liberal democracies, and so the task of reciprocal understanding is necessarily onerous. Still, our actions qua deliberative citizen must be grounded in such reciprocity if political cooperation on terms acceptable to us as (diversely) morally motivated citizens is to be possible at all. This is tantamount to an imperative to think autonomously inside the role of citizen because I cannot close-mindedly resist critical consideration of moral views alien to my own without flouting my responsibilities as a deliberative citizen.

Civic education does not exhaust the domain of moral education, even though the more robust conceptions of equal citizenship have far-reaching implications for just relations in civil society and the family. The study of moral education has traditionally taken its bearings from normative ethics rather than political philosophy, and this is largely true of work undertaken in recent decades. The major development here has been the revival of virtue ethics as an alternative to the deontological and consequentialist theories that dominated discussion for much of the twentieth century.

The defining idea of virtue ethics is that our criterion of moral right and wrong must derive from a conception of how the ideally virtuous agent would distinguish between the two. Virtue ethics is thus an alternative to both consequentialism and deontology which locate the relevant criterion in producing good consequences or meeting the requirements of moral duty respectively. The debate about the comparative merits of these theories is not resolved, but from an educational perspective that may be less important than it has sometimes seemed to antagonists in the debate. To be sure, adjudicating between rival theories in normative ethics might shed light on how best to construe the process of moral education, and philosophical reflection on the process might help us to adjudicate between the theories. There has been extensive work on habituation and virtue, largely inspired by Aristotle (Burnyeat 1980; Peters 1981). But whether this does anything to establish the superiority of virtue ethics over its competitors is far from obvious. Other aspects of moral education—in particular, the paired processes of role-modelling and identification—deserve much more scrutiny than they have received (Audi 2017; Kristjánsson 2015, 2017).

Related to the issues concerning the aims and functions of education and schooling rehearsed above are those involving the specifically epistemic aims of education and attendant issues treated by social and virtue epistemologists. (The papers collected in Kotzee 2013 and Baehr 2016 highlight the current and growing interactions among social epistemologists, virtue epistemologists, and philosophers of education.)

There is, first, a lively debate concerning putative epistemic aims. Alvin Goldman argues that truth (or knowledge understood in the “weak” sense of true belief) is the fundamental epistemic aim of education (Goldman 1999). Others, including the majority of historically significant philosophers of education, hold that critical thinking or rationality and rational belief (or knowledge in the “strong” sense that includes justification) is the basic epistemic educational aim (Bailin & Siegel 2003; Scheffler 1965, 1973 [1989]; Siegel 1988, 1997, 2005, 2017). Catherine Z. Elgin (1999a,b) and Duncan Pritchard (2013, 2016; Carter & Pritchard 2017) have independently urged that understanding is the basic aim. Pritchard’s view combines understanding with intellectual virtue ; Jason Baehr (2011) systematically defends the fostering of the intellectual virtues as the fundamental epistemic aim of education. This cluster of views continues to engender ongoing discussion and debate. (Its complex literature is collected in Carter and Kotzee 2015, summarized in Siegel 2018, and helpfully analyzed in Watson 2016.)

A further controversy concerns the places of testimony and trust in the classroom: In what circumstances if any ought students to trust their teachers’ pronouncements, and why? Here the epistemology of education is informed by social epistemology, specifically the epistemology of testimony; the familiar reductionism/anti-reductionism controversy there is applicable to students and teachers. Anti-reductionists, who regard testimony as a basic source of justification, may with equanimity approve of students’ taking their teachers’ word at face value and believing what they say; reductionists may balk. Does teacher testimony itself constitute good reason for student belief?

The correct answer here seems clearly enough to be “it depends”. For very young children who have yet to acquire or develop the ability to subject teacher declarations to critical scrutiny, there seems to be little alternative to accepting what their teachers tell them. For older and more cognitively sophisticated students there seem to be more options: they can assess them for plausibility, compare them with other opinions, assess the teachers’ proffered reasons, subject them to independent evaluation, etc. Regarding “the teacher says that p ” as itself a good reason to believe it appears moreover to contravene the widely shared conviction that an important educational aim is helping students to become able to evaluate candidate beliefs for themselves and believe accordingly. That said, all sides agree that sometimes believers, including students, have good reasons simply to trust what others tell them. There is thus more work to do here by both social epistemologists and philosophers of education (for further discussion see Goldberg 2013; Siegel 2005, 2018).

A further cluster of questions, of long-standing interest to philosophers of education, concerns indoctrination : How if at all does it differ from legitimate teaching? Is it inevitable, and if so is it not always necessarily bad? First, what is it? As we saw earlier, extant analyses focus on the aims or intentions of the indoctrinator, the methods employed, or the content transmitted. If the indoctrination is successful, all have the result that students/victims either don’t, won’t, or can’t subject the indoctrinated material to proper epistemic evaluation. In this way it produces both belief that is evidentially unsupported or contravened and uncritical dispositions to believe. It might seem obvious that indoctrination, so understood, is educationally undesirable. But it equally seems that very young children, at least, have no alternative but to believe sans evidence; they have yet to acquire the dispositions to seek and evaluate evidence, or the abilities to recognize evidence or evaluate it. Thus we seem driven to the views that indoctrination is both unavoidable and yet bad and to be avoided. It is not obvious how this conundrum is best handled. One option is to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable indoctrination. Another is to distinguish between indoctrination (which is always bad) and non-indoctrinating belief inculcation, the latter being such that students are taught some things without reasons (the alphabet, the numbers, how to read and count, etc.), but in such a way that critical evaluation of all such material (and everything else) is prized and fostered (Siegel 1988: ch. 5). In the end the distinctions required by the two options might be extensionally equivalent (Siegel 2018).

Education, it is generally granted, fosters belief : in the typical propositional case, Smith teaches Jones that p , and if all goes well Jones learns it and comes to believe it. Education also has the task of fostering open-mindedness and an appreciation of our fallibility : All the theorists mentioned thus far, especially those in the critical thinking and intellectual virtue camps, urge their importance. But these two might seem at odds. If Jones (fully) believes that p , can she also be open-minded about it? Can she believe, for example, that earthquakes are caused by the movements of tectonic plates, while also believing that perhaps they aren’t? This cluster of italicized notions requires careful handling; it is helpfully discussed by Jonathan Adler (2002, 2003), who recommends regarding the latter two as meta-attitudes concerning one’s first-order beliefs rather than lessened degrees of belief or commitments to those beliefs.

Other traditional epistemological worries that impinge upon the epistemology of education concern (a) absolutism , pluralism and relativism with respect to knowledge, truth and justification as these relate to what is taught, (b) the character and status of group epistemologies and the prospects for understanding such epistemic goods “universalistically” in the face of “particularist” challenges, (c) the relation between “knowledge-how” and “knowledge-that” and their respective places in the curriculum, (d) concerns raised by multiculturalism and the inclusion/exclusion of marginalized perspectives in curriculum content and the classroom, and (e) further issues concerning teaching and learning. (There is more here than can be briefly summarized; for more references and systematic treatment cf. Bailin & Siegel 2003; Carter & Kotzee 2015; Cleverley & Phillips 1986; Robertson 2009; Siegel 2004, 2017; and Watson 2016.)

The educational research enterprise has been criticized for a century or more by politicians, policymakers, administrators, curriculum developers, teachers, philosophers of education, and by researchers themselves—but the criticisms have been contradictory. Charges of being “too ivory tower and theory-oriented” are found alongside “too focused on practice and too atheoretical”; but in light of the views of John Dewey and William James that the function of theory is to guide intelligent practice and problem-solving, it is becoming more fashionable to hold that the “theory v. practice” dichotomy is a false one. (For an illuminating account of the historical development of educational research and its tribulations, see Lagemann 2000.)

A similar trend can be discerned with respect to the long warfare between two rival groups of research methods—on one hand quantitative/statistical approaches to research, and on the other hand the qualitative/ethnographic family. (The choice of labels here is not entirely risk-free, for they have been contested; furthermore the first approach is quite often associated with “experimental” studies, and the latter with “case studies”, but this is an over-simplification.) For several decades these two rival methodological camps were treated by researchers and a few philosophers of education as being rival paradigms (Kuhn’s ideas, albeit in a very loose form, have been influential in the field of educational research), and the dispute between them was commonly referred to as “the paradigm wars”. In essence the issue at stake was epistemological: members of the quantitative/experimental camp believed that only their methods could lead to well-warranted knowledge claims, especially about the causal factors at play in educational phenomena, and on the whole they regarded qualitative methods as lacking in rigor; on the other hand the adherents of qualitative/ethnographic approaches held that the other camp was too “positivistic” and was operating with an inadequate view of causation in human affairs—one that ignored the role of motives and reasons, possession of relevant background knowledge, awareness of cultural norms, and the like. Few if any commentators in the “paradigm wars” suggested that there was anything prohibiting the use of both approaches in the one research program—provided that if both were used, they were used only sequentially or in parallel, for they were underwritten by different epistemologies and hence could not be blended together. But recently the trend has been towards rapprochement, towards the view that the two methodological families are, in fact, compatible and are not at all like paradigms in the Kuhnian sense(s) of the term; the melding of the two approaches is often called “mixed methods research”, and it is growing in popularity. (For more detailed discussion of these “wars” see Howe 2003 and Phillips 2009.)

The most lively contemporary debates about education research, however, were set in motion around the turn of the millennium when the US Federal Government moved in the direction of funding only rigorously scientific educational research—the kind that could establish causal factors which could then guide the development of practically effective policies. (It was held that such a causal knowledge base was available for medical decision-making.) The definition of “rigorously scientific”, however, was decided by politicians and not by the research community, and it was given in terms of the use of a specific research method—the net effect being that the only research projects to receive Federal funding were those that carried out randomized controlled experiments or field trials (RFTs). It has become common over the last decade to refer to the RFT as the “gold standard” methodology.

The National Research Council (NRC)—an arm of the US National Academies of Science—issued a report, influenced by postpostivistic philosophy of science (NRC 2002), that argued that this criterion was far too narrow. Numerous essays have appeared subsequently that point out how the “gold standard” account of scientific rigor distorts the history of science, how the complex nature of the relation between evidence and policy-making has been distorted and made to appear overly simple (for instance the role of value-judgments in linking empirical findings to policy directives is often overlooked), and qualitative researchers have insisted upon the scientific nature of their work. Nevertheless, and possibly because it tried to be balanced and supported the use of RFTs in some research contexts, the NRC report has been the subject of symposia in four journals, where it has been supported by a few and attacked from a variety of philosophical fronts: Its authors were positivists, they erroneously believed that educational inquiry could be value neutral and that it could ignore the ways in which the exercise of power constrains the research process, they misunderstood the nature of educational phenomena, and so on. This cluster of issues continues to be debated by educational researchers and by philosophers of education and of science, and often involves basic topics in philosophy of science: the constitution of warranting evidence, the nature of theories and of confirmation and explanation, etc. Nancy Cartwright’s important recent work on causation, evidence, and evidence-based policy adds layers of both philosophical sophistication and real world practical analysis to the central issues just discussed (Cartwright & Hardie 2012, Cartwright 2013; cf. Kvernbekk 2015 for an overview of the controversies regarding evidence in the education and philosophy of education literatures).

As stressed earlier, it is impossible to do justice to the whole field of philosophy of education in a single encyclopedia entry. Different countries around the world have their own intellectual traditions and their own ways of institutionalizing philosophy of education in the academic universe, and no discussion of any of this appears in the present essay. But even in the Anglo-American world there is such a diversity of approaches that any author attempting to produce a synoptic account will quickly run into the borders of his or her competence. Clearly this has happened in the present case.

Fortunately, in the last thirty years or so resources have become available that significantly alleviate these problems. There has been a flood of encyclopedia entries, both on the field as a whole and also on many specific topics not well-covered in the present essay (see, as a sample, Burbules 1994; Chambliss 1996b; Curren 1998, 2018; Phillips 1985, 2010; Siegel 2007; Smeyers 1994), two “Encyclopedias” (Chambliss 1996a; Phillips 2014), a “Guide” (Blake, Smeyers, Smith, & Standish 2003), a “Companion” (Curren 2003), two “Handbooks” (Siegel 2009; Bailey, Barrow, Carr, & McCarthy 2010), a comprehensive anthology (Curren 2007), a dictionary of key concepts in the field (Winch & Gingell 1999), and a good textbook or two (Carr 2003; Noddings 2015). In addition there are numerous volumes both of reprinted selections and of specially commissioned essays on specific topics, some of which were given short shrift here (for another sampling see A. Rorty 1998, Stone 1994), and several international journals, including Theory and Research in Education , Journal of Philosophy of Education , Educational Theory , Studies in Philosophy and Education , and Educational Philosophy and Theory . Thus there is more than enough material available to keep the interested reader busy.

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autonomy: personal | Dewey, John | feminist philosophy, interventions: ethics | feminist philosophy, interventions: liberal feminism | feminist philosophy, interventions: political philosophy | feminist philosophy, topics: perspectives on autonomy | feminist philosophy, topics: perspectives on disability | Foucault, Michel | Gadamer, Hans-Georg | liberalism | Locke, John | Lyotard, Jean François | -->ordinary language --> | Plato | postmodernism | Rawls, John | rights: of children | Rousseau, Jean Jacques

Acknowledgments

The authors and editors would like to thank Randall Curren for sending a number of constructive suggestions for the Summer 2018 update of this entry.

Copyright © 2018 by Harvey Siegel D.C. Phillips Eamonn Callan

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Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

Education can shape an individual's life, both in the classroom and outside of it. A quality education can lay the groundwork for a successful career , but that's far from its only purpose. Education—both formal and informal—imparts knowledge, critical thinking skills, and, in many cases, an improved ability to approach unfamiliar situations and subjects with an open mind.

Some of the pressures of modern education, by contrast, are thought to contribute to the increased incidence of mental health challenges among today’s children and young adults. Examining current approaches to education—and identifying the ways in which they may be counterproductive—can help parents, teachers, and other stakeholders better support students’ well-being.

To learn more about helping kids succeed in school, see Academic Problems and Skills .

• The Purpose of Education
• What Makes Education Effective?
• How Can We Improve Education?

Scholars and philosophers have debated the purpose of education throughout history. Some have argued that education was necessary for an engaged citizenry; some felt its purpose was to promote obedience and indoctrinate youth to dominant cultural ideas; still others believed that the pursuit of knowledge was in itself a virtuous or even spiritual goal. Today, conversations around the purpose of education tend to center around child development and the economy—that is, how education can help children grow into healthy, competent adults who are able to support themselves financially and contribute to society. Some experts warn, however, that excessive focus on the economic and pragmatic benefits of education deprives the process of joy. Humans—especially children—are natural learners, they argue, and learning may be most valuable when it’s pursued for its own sake.

Education, broadly defined, is valuable for teaching children the social, emotional, and cognitive skills needed to function in society. Formal education is thought to facilitate social learning , build executive functioning skills, and allow children to explore subjects they may not naturally be exposed to. Informal education typically allows them to cultivate their own interests and learn self-direction , itself an important life skill.

Ideally, in the modern world, education will teach both the technical skills needed for future success and cultivate the critical thinking abilities that allow humans to creatively approach problems, engage new perspectives, and innovate in an ever-changing world. Whether the current system of formal education does that effectively, however, is a source of great debate among the public and policymakers alike.

Most policymakers and educational psychologists agree that some kind of formal education is necessary to function in the modern world. But many experts argue its hyperfocus on grades, testing, and following a set curriculum, rather than children’s interests, can actually be counterproductive and interfere with the natural learning process that more informal education approaches often provide. Excessively rigid schooling is also thought to contribute to heightened anxiety among children, especially those who fall behind or are otherwise non-normative.

Homeschooling —in which a child is not enrolled in a formal school, but instead is educated by their parents or with other homeschoolers—has both strengths and drawbacks. Some common benefits reported by families include increased flexibility in what is studied, the ability to pace the curriculum to a child’s needs, and a supportive learning environment. Potential cons include reduced opportunities for socialization, limited diversity in the opinions and subjects that a child may be exposed to, and an emotional and intellectual burden placed on parents, who may struggle to keep their child engaged or update their own knowledge to ensure they’re imparting useful, up-to-date information.

Grades can be valuable tools in determining which children grasp the material and which are struggling. But despite widespread myths that good grades are necessary to succeed in life , high school and college grades do not necessarily correlate with long-term success. And hyperfocus on grades can have profoundly negative effects, as students who pursue perfect grades at all costs often struggle with anxiety , depression , or feelings of burnout .

Highly-ranked colleges are widely assumed to confer lifelong benefits to attendees, including higher incomes and more prestigious, satisfying careers. But this isn’t necessarily true. Indeed, evidence suggests that, when controlling for prior socioeconomic status and academic achievement, attending an elite college makes little difference in someone’s later income. Other research suggests that the type of college someone attends has no effect on their later life satisfaction; instead, having supportive professors or participating in meaningful activities during college best predicts someone’s future well-being.

Teachers, parents, and society at large have debated at length the criteria that denote a "good" education. In recent years, many educators have attempted to develop their curricula based on research and data, integrating the findings of developmental psychology and behavioral science into their lesson plans and teaching strategies. Recent debates have centered on how much information should be tailored to individual students vs. the class at large, and, increasingly, whether and how to integrate technology into classrooms. Students’ age, culture, individual strengths and weaknesses, and personal background—as well as any learning disabilities they may have—all play a role in the effectiveness of particular teachers and teaching methods.

The idea that education should be tailored to children’s different “learning styles”—typically categorized as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic—has been around for decades. But research has not found that creating targeted lessons based on children’s learning styles helps them learn more effectively ; some has even suggested that characterizing children as having one particular learning style could be unfairly limiting, and may stop them from tackling tasks outside of their comfort zone.

Children are by nature highly active, and an inability to move throughout the day often triggers inattention and poor mood—neither of which are conducive to learning. And moving during learning, not just before or after it, has been shown to be similarly beneficial; children who are allowed to move in class learn better , research shows, paying more attention and achieving higher outcomes.

Whether homework is beneficial is the subject of debate. Proponents argue that homework reinforces lessons and fosters time management and organizational skills. Opponents argue that excessive homework has been correlated with lower scores in critical subjects, like math and science, as well as worsened physical and mental health. Most experts argue that if homework is assigned, it should serve a specific purpose —rather than just being busywork—and should be tailored to a child’s age and needs. 

In general, evidence suggests that online-only courses are less effective than courses where students are able to meet in person. However, when in-person learning is not possible—such as during the COVID-19 pandemic—well-designed  distance learning  programs can bridge the gap. Research indicates that online programs that mix passive instruction with active practice, and that allow students to progress at their own pace, tend to be most effective.

Depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders appear to be significantly more common in today's college students than they once were. Nearly 1 in 5 university students suffer from anxiety or depression, research suggests, and many colleges—particularly larger ones—will face at least one student suicide per year. The reasons for this are complex, experts warn, but may be due to factors including the increased prevalence of social media , the financial and academic stress of college, reduced economic opportunity upon graduation, and decreased resilience among today's youth as a result of parental over-involvement.

The world is changing rapidly, and so are children’s educational needs. While many people agree that education should prepare children for a competitive global economy, there has also been a push to recognize that children's well-being should be taken into consideration when planning curricula and structuring the school day.

To this end, parents and educators are confronting pedagogical questions such as: What is the optimal time to start school to make sure students can learn effectively—and get enough rest? How many and what kind of breaks do students need during the day? What are the best ways for students to learn, and do they differ depending on the subject being taught—or the students themselves?

In some of these areas, big changes are already taking place. Some states, for instance, are considering or have already passed laws that would delay school start times, making them more conducive to children's sleeping schedules. Other states have passed laws requiring recess, ensuring that children have access to physical activity throughout the day. These reforms, along with others, aim to protect children's physical and mental health—in addition to making them better able to focus, learn, and grow.

Many experts now believe that starting school later—typically after 8:30 A.M.—is better for children than starting earlier. This is particularly true for middle and high school children, who naturally sleep later than adults and may struggle to function if made to wake too early. Many school districts have implemented later school start times to account for this biological reality.

First and foremost, school recess provides the physical activity that is critical to a child’s physical and mental health. But recess is also an opportunity for children to socialize without (excessive) adult interference, which allows them to learn cooperation and conflict resolution skills.

Kindergarten and preschool programs are increasingly focusing on teaching children academic skills like math and reading. But evidence suggests that because children are not yet cognitively or emotionally equipped to handle most academic material, such early academic training can produce lasting harm . Some research has found that children in such programs do worse over the long term than children who spent preschool and kindergarten playing and socializing.

Children and young adults today are significantly more likely to experience mental health problems—especially anxiety and depression—than in decades past, and many will require mental health interventions at school. Evidence suggests that schools of any level can best support and help treat students with mental health disorders by proactively identifying students who need help, fostering a school culture that makes mental well-being a priority, and working to decrease stigma surrounding mental health care, both among students and their families. For students without diagnosable mental illnesses, schools can still be supportive by ensuring workloads are reasonable; providing opportunities for movement, creativity , and social connection; and reminding children, teenagers , and young adults that it's OK to ask for help.

To be fair to all, education systems may need to adapt to students’ differential learning needs and backgrounds.

Students often feel stuck at the beginning of their research projects; here is a strategy to keep moving forward.

Health literacy has been linked to positive health behaviors. Filling in some of the gaps can make it even more effective.

Researchers developed a method to transform students' writing over 30 years ago. What happened to it?

It’s not what you “get” out of college that changes your life; it’s what you’re given. Knowledge, curiosity, an appetite for learning and perspective are portable property.

An addiction psychologist and mother explains the problems with "drug-free kids" programs, and why we should instead aim for "addiction-resistant kids."

The psychology behind the "is-that-all-there-is" feeling post-graduation.

If your child is online, their online reputation is being formed. Here are six strategies to help kids build a positive digital presence.

What is classical music’s place today, what will its future be, and what can we learn from attending a classical concert live?

Is it better for kids to read books or spend time on screens? Research shows early reading for pleasure is a game-changer for healthy brain development. Screen time? Not so much.

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At any moment, someone’s aggravating behavior or our own bad luck can set us off on an emotional spiral that threatens to derail our entire day. Here’s how we can face our triggers with less reactivity so that we can get on with our lives.

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What the Future of Education Looks Like from Here

• Posted December 11, 2020
• By Emily Boudreau

After a year that involved a global pandemic, school closures, nationwide remote instruction, protests for racial justice, and an election, the role of education has never been more critical or more uncertain. When the dust settles from this year, what will education look like — and what should it aspire to?

To mark the end of its centennial year, HGSE convened a faculty-led discussion to explore those questions. The Future of Education panel, moderated by Dean Bridget Long and hosted by HGSE’s Askwith Forums , focused on hopes for education going forward, as well as HGSE’s role. “The story of HGSE is the story of pivotal decisions, meeting challenges, and tremendous growth,” Long said. “We have a long history of empowering our students and partners to be innovators in a constantly changing world. And that is needed now more than ever.”

Joining Long were Associate Professor Karen Brennan , Senior Lecturer Jennifer Cheatham , Assistant Professor Anthony Jack, and Professors Adriana Umaña-Taylor and Martin West , as they looked forward to what the future could hold for schools, educators, and communities:

… After the pandemic subsides

The pandemic heightened existing gaps and disparities and exposed a need to rethink how systems leaders design schools, instruction, and who they put at the center of that design. “As a leader, in the years before the pandemic hit, I realized the balance of our work as practitioners was off,” Cheatham said. “If we had been spending time knowing our children and our staff and designing schools for them, we might not be feeling the pain in the way we are. I think we’re learning something about what the real work of school is about.” In the coming years, the panelists hope that a widespread push to recognize the identity and health of the whole-child in K–12 and higher education will help educators design support systems that can reduce inequity on multiple levels.

… For the global community

As much as the pandemic isolated individuals, on the global scale, people have looked to connect with each other to find solutions and share ideas as they faced a common challenge. This year may have brought everyone together and allowed for exchange of ideas, policies, practices, and assessments across boundaries.

… For technological advancements

As educators and leaders create, design, and imagine the future, technology should be used in service of that vision rather than dictating it. As technology becomes a major part of how we communicate and share ideas, educators need to think critically about how to deploy technology strategically. “My stance on technology is that it should always be used in the service of our human purpose and interest,” said Brennan. “We’ve talked about racial equity, building relationships. Our values and purposes and goals need to lead the way, not the tech.”

… For teachers

Human connections and interactions are at the heart of education. At this time, it’s become abundantly clear that the role of the teacher in the school community is irreplaceable. “I think the next few years hinge on how much we’re willing to invest in educators and all of these additional supports in the school which essentially make learning possible,” Umaña-Taylor said, “these are the individuals who are making the future minds of the nation possible.”

Cutting-edge research and new knowledge must become part of the public discussion in order to meaningfully shape the policies and practices that influence the future of education. “I fundamentally believe that we as academics and scholars must be part of the conversation and not limit ourselves to just articles behind paywalls or policy paragraphs at the end of a paper,” Jack said. “We have to engage the larger public.”

… In 25 years

“We shouldn’t underestimate the possibility that the future might look a lot like the present,” West said. “As I think about the potential sources of change in education, and in American education in particular, I tend to think about longer-term trends as the key driver.” Changing student demographics, access to higher education, structural inequality, and the focus of school leaders are all longer-term trends that, according to panelists, will influence the future of education. 

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The Role of Education in Society: How It Impacts Our Lives?

Role of Education in Society: Education is a process of acquiring knowledge, through which, a person learns to interact with society. We can pass down our values and beliefs to the next generation through education, and allow us to grow up to be productive members of society.

In this blog post, we will discuss the importance of education and how it impacts our lives.

Table of Contents

What is Education?

Education reforms the life of an individual and society as a whole. The primary purpose of education is to disseminate knowledge and understanding. It helps individuals gain an insight into the happenings of the world around them. It also sensitizes them about their roles and responsibility in society.

In a fast-changing world, education plays a pivotal role in our lives – personal, professional and societal. By keeping us aware and updated about what’s happening around us.

Different types of education vary depending on the country or region. In general, there are three main levels of education: primary, secondary, and tertiary (or higher). 

Primary education is typically compulsory and provides basic reading, writing, and recognising skills. It usually starts at around the age of five or six and lasts for five to six years.

Secondary education builds on primary education and typically lasts for another four to five years. Tertiary, or higher, education is not compulsory but is often necessary to pursue further studies or enter certain professions. It can last anywhere from one year to several years, depending on the program of study.

There are many different philosophies about what the role of education should be in society. Some believe that it should primarily focus on academics and cognitive development, while others place more importance on social and emotional growth.

There is no single answer that is right for everyone, as each individual has unique needs and goals. However, it is quite vivid that education plays a significant role in the formation of a developed nation.

Primary Function of Education

The primary function of education is to empower individuals and prepare them for life. It helps us develop our skills and abilities so that we can be successful in our careers and contribute to society. Education also teaches us how to think critically, solve problems, and make informed decisions.

What is the Importance of Education in Society

Education helps an individual in making informed decisions. It equips them with the essential skills and knowledge to be successful in their chosen field. The role of education in society is empowering an individual. It helps people to understand the world around them and their role in it. Moreover, it also instils in them a sense of social responsibility so that they can contribute meaningfully to society.

The role of education in human capital formation is significant, as education improves productivity and prosperity of a society. The economic returns of education are higher for countries with more educated populations.

Education is the most important tool for social and economic development. It helps in reducing poverty, inequality and unemployment. Moreover, education also plays a critical role in empowering women and girls. Thus, it can be said that education is the cornerstone of any progressive society.

The role of education is not just limited to shaping our personal lives but so far it is meant to shape the entire world. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi , “The role of education is to change the heart of man.”

What is the Importance of Educational Institutions in Society?

Educational institutions play a very important role in imparting education to the students. They act as a medium through which knowledge and understanding are disseminated to the students. Moreover, they also help inculcate social values and ethics in the students.

Apart from imparting formal education, educational institutions also help in the personality development of the students. At educational institutions, the students are also made aware of the ethical values in society. Educational institutions help students to learn the foundational skill sets which later becomes foundational knowledge to acquire the professional knowledge to contribute towards the economy of society.

It is said that the role of educational institutions in society is twofold – to educate and to socialize. They play a significant role in moulding the future of our society.

The role of Education in Society is instrumental to grow human resources. An educated citizen is the greatest asset for any democratic society. A social revolution comes through educated, politically conscious and socially responsible people.

But still, there is a critical concern about the basic educational infrastructure in developing countries. It should be noted that nearly one-fourth of the Indian population still lacks access to basic educational activities. Moreover, the pandemic amplified the existing disparity of the basic education in the society, predominantly has hit hard in rural demographics. 

Now look at this data: India spends nearly 4.6% of its GDP on education, which is much less than most of the G20 nations. Hence developing countries invest more on quality education, innovation, and world class training for teachers.

The need of the hour is to provide inexpensive and accessible education to meet the aspirational value of Indian students. A robust education is the key to the growth and innovation of society, also to bringing peace and harmony as well.

Recommended Reading: Best Time-management Apps for College Students

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Role of Education in Society, Nation Building, and Importance

Education is a essential tool for developing skills like decision-making, mental agility, problem-solving, etc. It also breeds creativity and innovation. Check details on Role of Education here.

Table of Contents

Role of Education

Education is an essential tool for developing skills like decision-making, mental agility, problem-solving, and logical thinking. It also breeds creativity and innovation. In other words, Education is the transmission of knowledge, skills, and character traits. As BR Ambedkar said: “ Education is the manifestation of Perfection already in Man “.  He also believed that “Education is that which makes men fearless, teaches unity, makes understand their birth rights and teaches them to struggle and fight for freedom”.

According to Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan , where scientific knowledge ends, the realm of mystery begins. The world of scientific facts and the world of values is different. If education does not build wisdom and humanity in the hearts and minds of men, all its professional, scientific and technological triumphs will be meaningless. Therefore on the Birth date of  S Radhakrishnan, we celebrate Teachers Day.

Role of Education in Nation-Building

Education shapes a person, just as people are essential in determining a nation’s standing. Every nation is founded on education since it promotes a particular level of knowledge, morals, and awareness and is crucial to the development of technology. Greater literacy rates lead to quicker GDP growth and lower unemployment rates in a nation.

At present, nations are coping with a number of problems, such as a pandemic, terrorism, global warming, poverty, and gender inequality. Whether they are residential or day schools, they are essential in forming both pupils and the nation. Everyone who has access to a top-notch education can contribute to resolving these issues and enhancing living circumstances all around the nation.

Role of Education in Society

Education has many positive effects on society, from enhancing quality of life to fostering the growth of brilliant people with the potential to transform society. Because it provides possibilities for learning knowledge and skills that are genuinely altering the world, education is crucial to society. Not only is the availability of high-quality education crucial for individual growth but also for the growth of society as a whole. The important contributions of education to the society are as follows:

• A more tolerant society
• Better quality of life for vulnerable populations
• Reducing poverty
• Improving the nation’s health
• Reducing crime
• Improving social life
• Developing talents that change the face of humanity
• A large number of educated people improves the life of a community

Role of Education in Economic Development

Education is one of the most important aspects of development. It has a significant impact on a country’s economic prosperity. No country can advance its economy in the long run without making significant investments in its human capital. People’s perspectives on themselves and the world around them are widened by education. It improves their quality of life and offers a wide range of social advantages to both individuals and society. It is essential for assuring social and economic advancement.

It promotes entrepreneurship, technical advancements, women’s empowerment, social development, health awareness, and other areas where economic development can be accelerated. It also aids in the development of human capital, productivity, creativity, and poverty reduction. The following are the important contribution of education to India’s economic development.

• The creation of Human capital is directly related to human development.
• Educated and Skilled labour will help to increase industrial productivity and reduce wastage.
• Education, in every sense, is one of the most important aspects of attaining long-term economic growth through human capital investment which will help in Poverty Reduction
• Increased women empowerment will lead to the high speed of economic growth.
• Social Development from a dark place to a place of optimism.
• Increased awareness of Health, and reduced mortality at all levels.

Role of Education in Human Capital Formation

A more educated society can support a higher level of development than an uneducated one. Education leads to increased income and productivity, which together lead to a more fulfilling existence. In addition to assisting with individual progress, it also advances society as a whole. Education may boost value and improve cultural diversity. Here are a few of the contributions education makes to the development of human capital:

• Education teaches us to care and be empathetic, not only towards others but also to ourselves.
• Education promotes the growth of a country’s economy.
• An educated society always stays ahead and is more progressive than a society with low quality of education and educational standards
• Education also provides the opportunity to enhance the cultural richness.
• Education plays a role not only in the growth of an individual but also in the overall progress of society.

Role of Education in Skill Development

The development of skills includes education as a key component. It gives people the knowledge and abilities they need to excel in both their personal and professional lives. Education is a critical component of skill development since it keeps people abreast of emerging trends and technologies. The significance of education in skill development can be seen in the following ways:

• Knowledge Enhancement
• Competence Improvement
• Increased Employability
• Enhances creativity
• Encourages independent thinking

Role of Education in Sustainable Development

An important instrument for attaining a more sustainable future is high-quality education. This was emphasized at the UN World Summit in Johannesburg in 2002, where it was said that reforming the nation’s educational programs was essential for achieving sustainable development. Assuring environmental protection and conservation, advancing social fairness, and fostering economic sustainability are all goals of education for sustainable development (ESD), which fosters the development of the knowledge, skills, understanding, values, and behaviours necessary to create a sustainable world.

Environmental education, which aimed to equip individuals with the knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, and behaviours necessary to protect the environment, was a significant influence on the development of the ESD idea. ESD aims to empower individuals to make choices and take action that will enhance our quality of life without endangering the environment.

Role of Education in India

Every human being has a fundamental right to education, which plays a significant role in the growth of a country—India, the second-most populous nation in the world, with a literacy rate of about 74%. Despite the fact that several states in India have poor literacy rates, the country’s overall literacy rate is still increasing.

Given how crucial education is to the growth and development of any nation, Kerala leads all Indian states in terms of its rate of literacy, coming in at 94%, followed by Lakshadweep (91.85%), Mizoram (91.33%), and Goa (88.70%). However, Bihar, with a literacy rate of 61.80%, has the lowest literacy rate, followed by Arunachal Pradesh, with a rating of 65.38%, Rajasthan, with a rate of 66.11%, and Jharkhand, with a rate of 66.41%. These figures on the literacy rate make it very evident that India’s educational system has to be improved.

Any nation’s youth holds the key to its future. Youth will be better able to secure a bright future for both themselves and the nation if greater chances are provided and an effective education and learning system is established. Hence the Role of Teacher becomes essential for promoting quality education in the country.

Importance of Education for India

• Earnings rise by about 10% for every extra year of education.
• The gap between workers from wealthy and poor backgrounds in working poverty might be reduced by 39% if they obtained the same education.
• Without at least 40% of its adult population being read, no country in the world has ever experienced rapid and steady economic growth.
• From a mother’s lifestyle before giving birth to their likelihood of contracting ailments in later life, education benefits people’s health throughout their entire lives.
• Prenatal vitamins and other helpful pregnancy strategies are more likely to be used by women with at least six years of education, which lowers the risk of maternal or newborn mortality.
• Education has been shown to benefit girls and women more than boys. There is no other factor that comes close to the personal and economic empowerment that girls experience from school.

Role of Education UPSC

Education and skill development play a significant role in the broader field of human capital. Data on literacy from the 2011 Census give us a fast overview of the state of schooling today. However, literacy is not the only aspect of education. The RTE Act serves as the foundation of Indian education. However, it is the numerous education policies that have been mapped out since Independence that have contributed to the historical growth of the Indian educational system. These policies appear to have produced a variety of consequences. There is a lot of room for development still.

The Kasturirangan report, or the design of a new education policy, is the most recent development in the field of education. It perfectly encapsulates the urgent need for educational reform. India’s contemporary educational system urgently needs to be updated. The draft New Education Policy (NEP) is the ideal time to reflect on the country’s past history, accomplishments, and concerns while also outlining a cutting-edge educational strategy for India in the twenty-first century.

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Role of Education FAQs

What is the role of education.

Education helps you develop critical skills like decision-making, mental agility, problem-solving, and logical thinking.

What is the role of education in development?

Education becomes a catalyst in a person's personality development. It introduces a person to different perspectives and thus, helps in providing a clear and broad vision to an individual.

What is the role of education in society?

Education develops human personality, thoughts, dealing with others and prepares people for life experiences.

What is the role of education in social change?

Education contributes to social change in several ways. It fosters critical thinking, nurtures democratic values, enhances economic development, promotes social mobility, and facilitates cultural shifts.

What is the role of education in culture change?

Education plays a crucial role in driving cultural change and shaping societies. Education and cultural change are related.

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How Education Helps In Building Presence

Did you know that Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani, one of India’s most successful businessmen is a college dropout? He dropped out…

Did you know that Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani, one of India’s most successful businessmen is a college dropout? He dropped out of Stanford University to join his father’s business. Like him, many successful people across the world are college dropouts. They make us mull over the question—what is the importance of education in our life?

Education And Its Importance

Most of us are under the impression that the role of education is to help us gain knowledge from schools and colleges. However, the power of education isn’t limited to acquiring knowledge only from formal learning institutes. Earning a formal degree isn’t a necessary step to receiving an education. Learning can happen anywhere. In other words, education is the ability to think with or without the help of classrooms. It helps us apply the knowledge we’ve acquired in the world and understand the value of life.

The power of education is so strong that it can last a lifetime. Moreover, education is a lifelong process because there is no end to learning new things and acquiring new knowledge. The role of education is to help us build opinions and have different perspectives in our lives. It not only helps us improve our lives; it also helps us utilize our knowledge to improve the lives of others.

Power Of Education

Education forms character strengthens minds and makes us independent beings. It helps us exercise our intelligence and put our potential to optimal use. ( sapns2 ) By championing the importance of good education, we open doors to a better world. You learn how to stand out in a crowd and articulate your visions clearly. Education helps you create a unique purpose.

Harappa Education’s Building Presence course is designed to help you put your education skills to the best use. The ‘Building a Brand’ model will help you learn the benefits of creating and chasing your unique purpose. The TEA (Trust, Emotional Intelligence and Authenticity) Skills framework will help you communicate your ideas with people in a compelling way while exhibiting confidence.

Importance Of Education In Our Life

The role of education is to teach us how to conduct ourselves in life by giving us a conscience. It makes us more certain and confident about our long-term goals in life.

Here are a few facts highlighting the importance of good education:

1. Spreads Awareness

Education helps develop a conscience and often helps us differentiate between right and wrong. The role of education is to question everything and not take anything at its face value. An educated mind usually pursues the logic behind actions and decisions.

2. Drives Progress

It’s because of the power of education that we can access a variety of opportunities.  From the industrial revolution days to the present technologically advanced era, education has helped us make the leap. Discoveries, inventions, and all social/technological progress are proof of embracing the importance of education in our life.

3. Improves Lives

The role of education is to help us gain better control of our lives. If you want to change your life for the better, education helps you do that. For example, you decide to start your own company. The power of education will help you reach this realization. It gives you the confidence to use your knowledge and skill-sets.

4. Empowers People

Education improves our decision-making capabilities and gives us the courage to stand up for our beliefs. The importance of education in our life is rooted in real-time examples like women standing up against domestic violence or transgender communities fighting for civil rights.

5.  Changes The World

We’ve already established that education is not only helping us but also others around us. You’re better aware of your rights and responsibilities as a citizen. If you feel empowered, you’ll want to empower others. To make better judgments and use your skills to make the world a better place is the power of education and its importance.

They say, “Instruction ends in the schoolroom but education only ends in life”. Let’s keep reminding ourselves of the importance of education in our lives and continue making the world a better place.

Explore the skills & topics such as  Social Skills ,  How to Improve Social Skills ,  Conversation Skills  & Key  Skills for a Job  from our Harappa Diaries blog section and be workplace ready.

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The Role of Government in Education

From Milton Friedman (1962/1982), Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press); earlier version (1955) in Robert A. Solo (Ed.), Economics and the Public Interest , pp. 123-144 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press).

The general trend in our times toward increasing intervention by the state in economic affairs has led to a concentration of attention and dispute on the areas where new intervention is proposed and to an acceptance of whatever intervention has so far occurred as natural and unchangeable. The current pause, perhaps reversal, in the trend toward collectivism offers an opportunity to re-examine the existing activities of government and to make a fresh assessment of the activities that are and those that are not justified. This paper attempts such a re-examination for education.

Education is today largely paid for and almost entirely administered by governmental bodies or non-profit institutions. This situation has developed gradually and is now taken so much for granted that little explicit attention is any longer directed to the reasons for the special treatment of education even in countries that are predominantly free enterprise in organization and philosophy. The result has been an indiscriminate extension of governmental responsibility.

The role assigned to government in any particular field depends, of course, on the principles accepted for the organization of society in general. In what follows, I shall assume a society that takes freedom of the individual, or more realistically the family, as its ultimate objective, and seeks to further this objective by relying primarily on voluntary exchange among individuals for the organization of economic activity. In such a free private enterprise exchange economy, government’s primary role is to preserve the rules of the game by enforcing contracts, preventing coercion, and keeping markets free. Beyond this, there are only three major grounds on which government intervention is to be justified. One is “natural monopoly” or similar market imperfection which makes effective competition (and therefore thoroughly voluntary exchange) impossible. A second is the existence of substantial “neighborhood effects,” i.e., the action of one individual imposes significant costs on other individuals for which it is not feasible to make him compensate them or yields significant gains to them for which it is not feasible to make them compensate him — circumstances that again make voluntary exchange impossible. The third derives from an ambiguity in the ultimate objective rather than from the difficulty of achieving it by voluntary exchange, namely, paternalistic concern for children and other irresponsible individuals. The belief in freedom is for “responsible” units, among whom we include neither children nor insane people. In general, this problem is avoided by regarding the family as the basic unit and therefore parents as responsible for their children; in considerable measure, however, such a procedure rests on expediency rather than principle. The problem of drawing a reasonable line between action justified on these paternalistic grounds and action that conflicts with the freedom of responsible individuals is clearly one to which no satisfactory answer can be given.

In applying these general principles to education, we shall find it helpful to deal separately with (1) general education for citizenship, and (2) specialized vocational education, although it may be difficult to draw a sharp line between them in practice. The grounds for government intervention are widely different in these two areas and justify very different types of action.

General Education for Citizenship

A stable and democratic society is impossible without widespread acceptance of some common set of values and without a minimum degree of literacy and knowledge on the part of most citizens. Education contributes to both. In consequence, the gain from the education of a child accrues not only to the child or to his parents but to other members of the society; the education of my child contributes to other people’s welfare by promoting a stable and democratic society. Yet it is not feasible to identify the particular individuals (or families) benefited or the money value of the benefit and so to charge for the services rendered. There is therefore a significant “neighborhood effect.”

What kind of governmental action is justified by this particular neighborhood effect? The most obvious is to require that each child receive a minimum amount of education of a specified kind. Such a requirement could be imposed upon the parents without further government action, just as owners of buildings, and frequently of automobiles, are required to adhere to specified standards to protect the safety of others. There is, however, a difference between the two cases. In the latter, individuals who cannot pay the costs of meeting the required standards can generally divest themselves of the property in question by selling it to others who can, so the requirement can readily be enforced without government subsidy — though even here, if the cost of making the property safe exceeds its market value, and the owner is without resources, the government may be driven to paying for the demolition of a dangerous building or the disposal of an abandoned automobile. The separation of a child from a parent who cannot pay for the minimum required education is clearly inconsistent with our reliance on the family as the basic social unit and our belief in the freedom of the individual.

Yet, even so, if the financial burden imposed by such an educational requirement could readily be met by the great bulk of the families in a community, it might be both feasible and desirable to require the parents to meet the cost directly.

Extreme cases could be handled by special provisions in much the same way as is done now for housing and automobiles. An even closer analogy is provided by present arrangements for children who are mistreated by their parents. The advantage of imposing the costs on the parents is that it would tend to equalize the social and private costs of having children and so promote a better distribution of families by size. 1

Differences among families in resources and in number of children — both a reason for and a result of the different policy that has been followed — plus the imposition of a standard of education involving very sizable costs have, however, made such a policy hardly feasible. Instead, government has assumed the financial costs of providing the education. In doing so, it has paid not only for the minimum amount of education required of all but also for additional education at higher levels available to youngsters but not required of them — as for example in State and municipal colleges and universities. Both steps can be justified by the “neighborhood effect” discussed above — the payment of the costs as the only feasible means of enforcing the required minimum; and the financing of additional education, on the grounds that other people benefit from the education of those of greater ability and interest since this is a way of providing better social and political leadership.

Government subsidy of only certain kinds of education can be justified on these grounds. To anticipate, they do not justify subsidizing purely vocational education which increases the economic productivity of the student but does not train him for either citizenship or leadership. It is clearly extremely difficult to draw a sharp line between these two types of education. Most general education adds to the economic value of the student — indeed it is only in modern times and in a few countries that literacy has ceased to have a marketable value. And much vocational education broadens the student’s outlook. Yet it is equally clear that the distinction is a meaningful one. For example, subsidizing the training of veterinarians, beauticians, dentists, and a host of other specialized skills — as is widely done in the United States in governmentally supported educational institutions — cannot be justified on the same grounds as subsidizing elementary education or, at a higher level, liberal education. Whether it can be justified on quite different grounds is a question that will be discussed later in this paper.

The qualitative argument from the “neighborhood effect” does not, of course, determine the specific kids of education that should be subsidized or by how much they should be subsidized. The social gain from education is presumably greatest for the very lowest levels of education, where there is the nearest approach to unanimity about the content of the education, and declines continuously as the level of education rises. But even this statement cannot be taken completely for granted — many governments subsidized universities long before they subsidized lower education. What forms of education have the greatest social advantage and how much of the community’s limited resources should be spent on them are questions to be decided by the judgment of the community expressed through its accepted political channels. The role of an economist is not to decide these questions for the community but rather to clarify the issues to be judged by the community in making a choice, in particular, whether the choice is one that it is appropriate or necessary to make on a communal rather than individual basis.

We have seen that both the imposition of a minimum required level of education and the financing of education by the state can be justified by the “neighborhood effects” of education. It is more difficult to justify in these terms a third step that has generally been taken, namely, the actual administration of educational institutions by the government, the “nationalization,” as it were, of the bulk of the “education industry.” The desirability of such nationalization has seldom been faced explicitly because governments have in the main financed education by paying directly the costs of running educational institutions, so that this step has seemed required by the decision to subsidize education. Yet the two steps could readily be separated. Governments could require a minimum level of education which they could finance by giving parents vouchers redeemable for a specified maximum sum per child per year if spent on “approved” educational services.

Parents would then be free to spend this sum and any additional sum on purchasing educational services from an “approved” institution of their own choice. The educational services could be rendered by private enterprises operated for profit, or by non-profit institutions of various kinds. The role of the government would be limited to assuring that the schools met certain minimum standards such as the inclusion of a minimum common content in their programs, much as it now inspects restaurants to assure that they maintain minimum sanitary standards. An excellent example of a program of this sort is the United States educational program for veterans after World War II. Each veteran who qualified was given a maximum sum per year that could be spent at any institution of his choice, provided it met certain minimum standards. A more limited example is the provision in Britain whereby local authorities pay the fees of some students attending nonstate schools (the so-called “public schools”). Another is the arrangement in France whereby the state pays part of the costs for students attending non-state schools.

One argument from the “neighborhood effect” for nationalizing education is that it might otherwise be impossible to provide the common core of values deemed requisite for social stability. The imposition of minimum standards on privately conducted schools, as suggested above, might not be enough to achieve this result. The issue can be illustrated concretely in terms of schools run by religious groups. Schools run by different religious groups will, it can be argued, instill sets of values that are inconsistent with one another and with those instilled in other schools; in this way they convert education into a divisive rather than a unifying force.

Carried to its extreme, this argument would call not only for governmentally administered schools, but also for compulsory attendance at such schools. Existing arrangements in the United States and most other Western countries are a halfway house. Governmentally administered schools are available but not required. However, the link between the financing of education and its administration places other schools at a disadvantage: they get the benefit of little or none of the governmental funds spent on education — a situation that has been the source of much political dispute, particularly, of course, in France. The elimination of this disadvantage might, it is feared, greatly strengthen the parochial schools and so render the problem of achieving a common core of values even more difficult.

This argument has considerable force. But it is by no means clear either that it is valid or that the denationalizing of education would have the effects suggested. On grounds of principle, it conflicts with the preservation of freedom itself; indeed, this conflict was a major factor retarding the development of state education in England. How draw a line between providing for the common social values required for a stable society on the one hand, and indoctrination inhibiting freedom of thought and belief on the other? Here is another of those vague boundaries that it is easier to mention than to define.

In terms of effects, the denationalization of education would widen the range of choice available to parents. Given, as at present, that parents can send their children to government schools without special payment, very few can or will send them to other schools unless they too are subsidized.

Parochial schools are at a disadvantage in not getting any of the public funds devoted to education; but they have the compensating advantage of being funded by institutions that are willing to subsidize them and can raise funds to do so, whereas there are few other sources of subsidies for schools.

Let the subsidy be made available to parents regardless where they send their children — provided only that it be to schools that satisfy specified minimum standards — and a wide variety of schools will spring up to meet the demand. Parents could express their views about schools directly, by withdrawing their children from one school and sending them to another, to a much greater extent than is now possible. In general, they can now take this step only by simultaneously changing their place of residence.

For the rest, they can express their views only through cumbrous political channels. Perhaps a somewhat greater degree of freedom to choose schools could be made available also in a governmentally administered system, but it is hard to see how it could be carried very far in view of the obligation to provide every child with a place. Here, as in other fields, competitive private enterprise is likely to be far more efficient in meeting consumer demands than either nationalized enterprises or enterprises run to serve other purposes. The final result may therefore well be less rather than more parochial education.

Another special case of the argument that governmentally conducted schools are necessary to keep education a unifying force is that private schools would tend to exacerbate class distinctions. Given greater freedom about where to send their children, parents of a kind would flock together and so prevent a healthy intermingling of children from decidedly different backgrounds. Again, whether or not this argument is valid in principle, it is not at all clear that the stated results would follow. Under present arrangements, particular schools tend to be peopled by children with similar backgrounds thanks to the stratification of residential areas. In addition, parents are not now prevented from sending their children to private schools. Only a highly limited class can or does do so, parochial schools aside, in the process producing further stratification. The widening of the range of choice under a private system would operate to reduce both kinds of stratification.

Another argument for nationalizing education is “natural monopoly.” In small communities and rural areas, the number of children may be too small to justify more than one school of reasonable size, so that competition cannot be relied on to protect the interests of parents and children. As in other cases of natural monopoly, the alternatives are unrestricted private monopoly, state-controlled private monopoly, and public operation — a choice among evils. This argument is clearly valid and significant, although its force has been greatly weakened in recent decades by improvements in transportation and increasing concentration of the population in urban communities.

The arrangement that perhaps comes closest to being justified by these considerations — at least for primary and secondary education — is a mixed one under which governments would continue to administer some schools but parents who chose to send their children to other schools would be paid a sum equal to the estimated cost of educating a child in a government school, provided that at least this sum was spent on education in an approved school. This arrangement would meet the valid features of the “natural monopoly” argument, while at the same time it would permit competition to develop where it could. It would meet the just complaints of parents that if they send their children to private nonsubsidized schools they are required to pay twice for education — once in the form of general taxes and once directly — and in this way stimulate the development and improvement of such schools. The interjection of competition would do much to promote a healthy variety of schools. It would do much, also, to introduce flexibility into school systems. Not least of its benefits would be to make the salaries of school teachers responsive to market forces. It would thereby give governmental educational authorities an independent standard against which to judge salary scales and promote a more rapid adjustment to changes in conditions of demand or supply. 2

Why is it that our educational system has not developed along these lines? A full answer would require a much more detailed knowledge of educational history than I possess, and the most I can do is to offer a conjecture. For one thing, the “natural monopoly” argument was much stronger at an earlier date. But I suspect that a much more important factor was the combination of the general disrepute of cash grants to individuals (“handouts”) with the absence of an efficient administrative machinery to handle the distribution of vouchers and to check their use. The development of such machinery is a phenomenon of modern times that has come to full flower only with the enormous extension of personal taxation and of social security programs. In its absence, the administration of schools was regarded as the only possible way to finance education. Of course, as some of the examples cited above suggest, some features of the proposed arrangements are present in existing educational systems. And there has been strong and I believe increasing pressure for arrangements of this general kind in most Western countries, which is perhaps to be explained by the modern developments in governmental administrative machinery that facilitate such arrangements.

Many detailed administrative problems would arise in changing over from the present to the proposed system and in administering the proposed system. But these seem neither insoluble nor unique. As in the denationalization of other activities, existing premises and equipment could be sold to private enterprises that wanted to enter the field, so there would be no waste of capital in the transition. The fact that governmental units, at least in some areas, were going to continue to administer schools would permit a gradual and easy transition. The localized administration of education in the United States and some other countries would similarly facilitate the transition, since it would encourage experimentation on a small scale and with alternative methods of handling both these and other problems.

Difficulties would doubtless arise in determining eligibility for grants from a particular governmental unit, but this is identical with the existing problem of determining which unit is obligated to provide educational facilities for a particular child. Differences in size of grants would make one area more attractive than another just as differences in the quality of education now have the same effect.

The only additional complication is a possibly greater opportunity for abuse because of the greater freedom to decide where to educate children. Supposed difficulty of administration is a standard defense of the status quo against any proposed changes; in this particular case, it is an even weaker defense than usual because existing arrangements must master not only the major problems raised by the proposed arrangements but also the additional problems raised by the administration of the schools as a governmental function.

The preceding discussion is concerned mostly with primary and secondary education. For higher education, the case for nationalization on grounds either of neighborhood effects or of natural monopoly is even weaker than for primary and secondary education. For the lowest levels of education, there is considerable agreement, approximating unanimity, on the appropriate content of an educational program for citizens of a democracy — the three R’s cover most of the ground. At successively higher levels of education, there is less and less agreement. Surely, well below the level of the American college, one can expect insufficient agreement to justify imposing the views of a majority, much less a plurality, on all. The lack of agreement may, indeed, extend so far as to cast doubts on the appropriateness of even subsidizing education at this level; it surely goes far enough to undermine any case for nationalization on the grounds of providing a common core of values. Similarly, there can hardly be any question of “natural monopoly” at this level, in view of the distances that individuals can and do go to attend institutions of higher learning.

Governmental institutions in fact play a smaller role in the United States in higher education than at lower levels. Yet they grew greatly in importance until at least the 1920’s and now account for more than half the students attending colleges and universities. 3 One of the main reasons for their growth was their relative cheapness: most State and municipal colleges and universities charge much lower tuition fees than private universities can afford to. Private universities have in consequence had serious financial problems, and have quite properly complained of “unfair” competition. They have wanted to maintain their independence from government, yet at the same time have felt driven by financial pressure to seek government aid.

The preceding analysis suggests the lines along which a satisfactory solution can be found. Public expenditure on higher education can be justified as a means of training youngsters for citizenship and for community leadership — though I hasten to add that the large fraction of current expenditure that goes for strictly vocational training cannot be justified in this way or, indeed, as we shall see, in any other. Restricting the subsidy to education obtained at a state-administered institution cannot be justified on these grounds, or on any other that I can derive from the basic principles outlined at the outset. Any subsidy should be granted to individuals to be spent at institutions of their own choosing, provided only that the education is of a kind that it is desired to subsidize. Any government schools that are retained should charge fees covering the cost of educating students and so compete on an equal level with non-government-supported schools. The retention of state schools themselves would, however, have to be justified on grounds other than those we have so far considered. 4 The resulting system would follow in its broad outlines the arrangements adopted in the United States after World War II for financing the education of veterans, except that the funds would presumably come from the States rather than the Federal government.

The adoption of such arrangements would make for more effective competition among various types of schools and for a more efficient utilization of their resources. It would eliminate the pressure for direct government assistance to private colleges and universities and thus preserve their full independence and diversity at the same time that it enabled them to grow relatively to State institutions. It might also have the ancillary advantage of causing a closer scrutiny of the purposes for which subsidies are granted. The subsidization of institutions rather than of people has led to an indiscriminate subsidization of whatever activities it is appropriate for such institutions to undertake, rather than of the activities it is appropriate for the state to subsidize. Even cursory examination suggests that while the two classes of activities overlap, they are far from identical.

Vocational or Professional Education

As noted above, vocational or professional education has no neighborhood effects of the kind attributed above to general education. It is a form of investment in human capital precisely analogous to investment in machinery, buildings, or other forms of nonhuman capital. Its function is to raise the economic productivity of the human being. If it does so, the individual is rewarded in a free enterprise society by receiving a higher return for his services than he would otherwise be able to command. 5 This difference is the economic incentive to acquire the specialized training, just as the extra return that can be obtained with an extra machine is the economic incentive to invest capital in the machine. In both cases, extra returns must be balanced against the costs of acquiring them. For vocational education, the major costs are the income foregone during the period of training, interest lost by postponing the beginning of the earning period, and special expenses of acquiring the training such as tuition fees and expenditures on books and equipment. For physical capital, the major costs are the expenses of constructing the capital equipment and the interest during construction.

In both cases, an individual presumably regards the investment as desirable if the extra returns, as he views them, exceed the extra costs, as he views them. 6 In both cases, if the individual undertakes the investment and if the state neither subsidizes the investment nor taxes the return, the individual (or his parent, sponsor, or benefactor) in general bears all the extra cost and receives all the extra returns: there are no obvious unborne costs or unappropriable returns that tend to make private incentives diverge systematically from those that are socially appropriate. If capital were as readily available for investment in human beings as for investment in physical assets, whether through the market or through direct investment by the individuals concerned or their parents or benefactors, the rate of return on capital would tend to be roughly equal in the two fields: if it were higher on non-human capital, parents would have an incentive to buy such capital for their children instead of investing a corresponding sum in vocational training, and conversely. In fact, however, there is considerable empirical evidence that the rate of return on investment in training is very much higher than the rate of return on investment in physical capital.

According to estimates that Simon Kuznets and I have made elsewhere, professionally trained workers in the United States would have had to earn during the 1930s at most 70 percent more than other workers to cover the extra costs of their training, including interest at roughly the market rate on non-human capital. In fact, they earned on the average between two and three times as much. 7

Some part of this difference may well be attributable to greater natural ability on the part of those who entered the professions: it may be that they would have earned more than the average non-professional worker if they had not gone into the professions. Kuznets and I concluded, however, that such differences in ability could not explain anything like the whole of the extra return of the professional workers. 8 Apparently, there was sizable underinvestment in human beings. The postwar period has doubtless brought changes in the relative earnings in different occupations.

It seems extremely doubtful, however, that they have been sufficiently great to reverse this conclusion. It is not certain at what level this underinvestment sets in. It clearly applies to professions requiring a long period of training, such as medicine, law, dentistry, and the like and probably to all occupations requiring a college training. At one time, it almost certainly extended to many occupations requiring much less training but probably no longer does, although the opposite has sometimes been maintained. 9

This underinvestment in human capital presumably reflects an imperfection in the capital market: investment in human beings cannot be financed on the same terms or with the same ease as investment in physical capital. It is easy to see why there would be such a difference. If a fixed money loan is made to finance investment in physical capital, the lender can get some security for his loan in the form of a mortgage or residual claim to the physical asset itself, and he can count on realizing at least part of his investment in case of necessity by selling the physical asset. If he makes a comparable loan to increase the earning power of a human being, he clearly cannot get any comparable security; in a non-slave state, the individual embodying the investment cannot be bought and sold. But even if he could, the security would not be comparable. The productivity of the physical capital does not — or at least generally does not — depend on the co-operativeness of the original borrower. The productivity of the human capital quite obviously does — which is, of course, why, all ethical considerations aside, slavery is economically inefficient. A loan to finance the training of an individual who has no security to offer other than his future earnings is therefore a much less attractive proposition than a loan to finance, say, the erection of a building: the security is less, and the cost of subsequent collection of interest and principal is very much greater.

A further complication is introduced by the inappropriateness of fixed money loans to finance investment in training. Such an investment necessarily involves much risk. The average expected return may be high, but there is wide variation about the average. Death or physical incapacity is one obvious source of variation but is probably much less important than differences in ability, energy, and good fortune. The result is that if fixed money loans were made, and were secured only by expected future earnings, a considerable fraction would never be repaid. In order to make such loans attractive to lenders, the nominal interest rate charged on all loans would have to be sufficiently high to compensate for the capital losses on the defaulted loans. The high nominal interest rate would both conflict with usury laws and make the loans unattractive to borrowers, especially to borrowers who have or expect to have other assets on which they cannot currently borrow but which they might have to realize or dispose of to pay the interest and principal of the loan. 10 The device adopted to meet the corresponding problem for other risky investments is equity investment plus limited liability on the part of shareholders. The counterpart for education would be to “buy” a share in an individual’s earning prospects: to advance him the funds needed to finance his training on condition that he agree to pay the lender a specified fraction of his future earnings. In this way, a lender would get back more than his initial investment from relatively successful individuals, which would compensate for the failure to recoup his original investment from the unsuccessful.

There seems no legal obstacle to private contracts of this kind, even though they are economically equivalent to the purchase of a share in an individual’s earning capacity and thus to partial slavery. One reason why such contracts have not become common, despite their potential profitability to both lenders and borrowers, is presumably the high costs of administering them, given the freedom of individuals to move from one place to another, the need for getting accurate income statements, and the long period over which the contracts would run. These costs would presumably be particularly high for investment on a small scale with a resultant wide geographical spread of the individuals financed in this way. Such costs may well be the primary reason why this type of investment has never developed under private auspices. But I have never been able to persuade myself that a major role has not also been played by the cumulative effect of such factors as the novelty of the idea, the reluctance to think of investment in human beings as strictly comparable to investment in physical assets, the resultant likelihood of irrational public condemnation of such contracts, even if voluntarily entered into, and legal and conventional limitation on the kind of investments that may be made by the financial intermediaries that would be best suited to engage in such investments, namely, life insurance companies. The potential gains, particularly to early entrants, are so great that it would be worth incurring extremely heavy administrative costs. 11

But whatever the reason, there is clearly here an imperfection of the market that has led to underinvestment in human capital and that justifies government intervention on grounds both of “natural monopoly,” insofar as the obstacle to the development of such investment has been administrative costs, and of improving the operation of the market, insofar as it has been simply market frictions and rigidities.

What form should government intervention take? One obvious form, and the only form that it has so far taken, is outright government subsidy of vocational or professional education financed out of general revenues. Yet this form seems clearly inappropriate. Investment should be carried to the point at which the extra return repays the investment and yields the market rate of interest on it. If the investment is in a human being, the extra return takes the form of a higher payment for the individual’s services than he could otherwise command. In a private market economy, the individual would get this return as his personal income, yet if the investment were subsidized, he would have borne none of the costs. In consequence, if subsidies were given to all who wished to get the training, and could meet minimum quality standards, there would tend to be overinvestment in human beings, for individuals would have an incentive to get the training so long as it yielded any extra return over private costs, even if the return were insufficient to repay the capital invested, let alone yield any interest on it. To avoid such overinvestment, government would have to restrict the subsidies. Even apart from the difficulty of calculating the “correct” amount of investment, this would involve rationing in some essentially arbitrary way the limited amount of investment among more claimants than could be financed, and would mean that those fortunate enough to get their training subsidized would receive all the returns from the investment whereas the costs would be borne by the taxpayers in general. This seems an entirely arbitrary, if not perverse, redistribution of income.

The desideratum is not to redistribute income but to make capital available for investment in human beings on terms comparable to those on which it is available for physical investment. Individuals should bear the costs of investment in themselves and receive the rewards, and they should not be prevented by market imperfections from making the investment when they are willing to bear the costs. One way to do this is to have government engage in equity investment in human beings of the kind described above.

A governmental body could offer to finance or help finance the training of any individual who could meet minimum quality standards by making available not more than a limited sum per year for not more than a specified number of years, provided it was spent on securing training at a recognized institution. The individual would agree in return to pay to the government in each future year x percent of his earnings in excess of y dollars for each $1,000 that he gets in this way. This payment could easily be combined with payment of income tax and so involve a minimum of additional administrative expense. The base sum, $y, should be set equal to estimated average — or perhaps modal — earnings without the specialized training; the fraction of earnings paid, x , should be calculated so as to make the whole project self-financing. In this way the individuals who received the training would in effect bear the whole cost. The amount invested could then be left to be determined by individual choice. Provided this was the only way in which government financed vocational or professional training, and provided the calculated earnings reflected all relevant returns and costs, the free choice of individuals would tend to produce the optimum amount of investment. The second proviso is unfortunately not likely to be fully satisfied. In practice, therefore, investment under the plan would still be somewhat too small and would not be distributed in the optimum manner. To illustrate the point at issue, suppose that a particular skill acquired by education can be used in two different ways; for example, medical skill in research or in private practice. Suppose that, if money earnings were the same, individuals would generally prefer research. The non-pecuniary advantages of research would then tend to be offset by higher money earnings in private practice. These higher earnings would be included in the sum to which the fraction x was applied whereas the monetary equivalent of the non-pecuniary advantages of research would not be. In consequence, the earnings differential would have to be higher under the plan than if individuals could finance themselves, since it is the net monetary differential, not the gross, that individuals would balance against the non-pecuniary advantages of research in deciding how to use their skill. This result would be produced by a larger than optimum fraction of individuals going into research necessitating a higher value of x to make the scheme self-financing than if the value of the non-pecuniary advantages could be included in calculated earnings. The inappropriate use of human capital financed under the plan would in this way lead to a less than optimum incentive to invest and so to a less than optimum amount of investment. 12

Estimation of the values of x and y clearly offers considerable difficulties, especially in the early years of operation of the plan, and the danger would always be present that they would become political footballs. Information on existing earnings in various occupations is relevant but would hardly permit anything more than a rough approximation to the values that would render the project self-financing. In addition, the values should in principle vary from individual to individual in accordance with any differences in expected earning capacity that can be predicted in advance — the problem is similar to that of varying life insurance premia among groups that have different life expectancy. For such reasons as these it would be preferable if similar arrangements could be developed on a private basis by financial institutions in search of outlets for investing their funds, non-profit institutions such as private foundations, or individual universities and colleges.

Insofar as administrative expense is the obstacle to the development of such arrangements on a private basis, the appropriate unit of government to make funds available is the Federal government in the United States rather than smaller units. Any one State would have the same costs as an insurance company, say, in keeping track of the people whom it had financed. These would be minimized for the Federal government. Even so, they would not be completely eliminated. An individual who migrated to another country, for example, might still be legally or morally obligated to pay the agreed-on share of his earnings, yet it might be difficult and expensive to enforce the obligation. Highly successful people might therefore have an incentive to migrate. A similar problem arises, of course, also under the income tax, and to a very much greater extent. This and other administrative problems of conducting the scheme on a Federal level, while doubtless troublesome in detail, do not seem serious. The really serious problem is the political one already mentioned: how to prevent the scheme from becoming a political football and in the process being converted from a self-financing project to a means of subsidizing vocational education.

But if the danger is real, so is the opportunity. Existing imperfections in the capital market tend to restrict the more expensive vocational and professional training to individuals whose parents or benefactors can finance the training required. They make such individuals a “non-competing” group sheltered from competition by the unavailability of the necessary capital to many individuals, among whom must be large numbers with equal ability. The result is to perpetuate inequalities in wealth and status. The development of arrangements such as those outlined above would make capital more widely available and would thereby do much to make equality of opportunity a reality, to “diminish inequalities of income and wealth, and to promote the full use of our human resources. And it would do so not, like the outright redistribution of income, by impeding competition, destroying incentive, and dealing with symptoms, but by strengthening competition, making incentives effective, and eliminating the causes of inequality.

This re-examination of the role of government in education suggests that the growth of governmental responsibility in this area has been unbalanced. Government has appropriately financed general education for citizenship, but in the process it has been led also to administer most of the schools that provide such education. Yet, as we have seen, the administration of schools is neither required by the financing of education, nor justifiable in its own right in a predominantly free enterprise society. Government has appropriately been concerned with widening the opportunity of young men and women to get professional and technical training, but it has sought to further this objective by the inappropriate means of subsidizing such education, largely in the form of making it available free or at a low price at governmentally operated schools.

The lack of balance in governmental activity reflects primarily the failure to separate sharply the question what activities it is appropriate for government to finance from the question what activities it is appropriate for government to administer — a distinction that is important in other areas of government activity as well. Because the financing of general education by government is widely accepted, the provision of general education directly by governmental bodies has also been accepted. But institutions that provide general education are especially well suited also to provide some kinds of vocational and professional education, so the acceptance of direct government provision of general education has led to the direct provision of vocational education. To complete the circle, the provision of vocational education has, in turn, meant that it too was financed by government, since financing has been predominantly of educational institutions not of particular kinds of educational services.

The alternative arrangements whose broad outlines are sketched in this paper distinguish sharply between the financing of education and the operation of educational institutions, and between education for citizenship or leadership and for greater economic productivity. Throughout, they center attention on the person rather than the institution. Government, preferably local governmental units, would give each child, through his parents, a specified sum to be used solely in paying for his general education; the parents would be free to spend this sum at a school of their own choice, provided it met certain minimum standards laid down by the appropriate governmental unit. Such schools would be conducted under a variety of auspices: by private enterprises operated for profit, nonprofit institutions established by private endowment, religious bodies, and some even by governmental units.

For vocational education, the government, this time however the central government, might likewise deal directly with the individual seeking such education. If it did so, it would make funds available to him to finance his education, not as a subsidy but as “equity” capital. In return, he would obligate himself to pay the state a specified fraction of his earnings above some minimum, the fraction and minimum being determined to make the program self-financing. Such a program would eliminate existing imperfections in the capital market and so widen the opportunity of individuals to make productive investments in themselves while at the same time assuring that the costs are borne by those who benefit most directly rather than by the population at large.

An alternative, and a highly desirable one if it is feasible, is to stimulate private arrangements directed toward the same end. The result of these measures would be a sizable reduction in the direct activities of government, yet a great widening in the educational opportunities open to our children. They would bring a healthy increase in the variety of educational institutions available and in competition among them. Private initiative and enterprise would quicken the pace of progress in this area as it has in so many others. Government would serve its proper function of improving the operation of the invisible hand without substituting the dead hand of bureaucracy.

Note: I am indebted to P. T. Bauer, A. R. Prest, and H. G. Johnson for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

1. It is by no means so fantastic as may at first appear that such a step would noticeably affect the size of families. For example. one explanation of the lower birth rate among higher than among lower socio-economic groups may well be that children are relatively more expensive to the former, thanks in considerable measure to the higher standards of education they maintain and the costs of which they bear.

2. Essentially this proposal — public financing but private operation of education has recently been suggested in several southern states as a means of evading the Supreme Court ruling against segregation. This fact came to my attention after this paper was essentially in its present form. My initial reaction — and I venture to predict, that of most readers — was that this possible use of the proposal was a count against it, that it was a particularly striking case of the possible defect — the exacerbating of class distinctions — referred to in the second paragraph preceding the one to which this note is attached.

Further thought has led me to reverse my initial reaction. Principles can be tested most clearly by extreme cases. Willingness to permit free speech to people with whom one agrees is hardly evidence of devotion to the principle of free speech; the relevant test is willingness to permit free speech to people with whom one thoroughly disagrees. Similarly, the relevant test of the belief in individual freedom is the willingness to oppose state intervention even when it is designed to prevent individual activity of a kind one thoroughly dislikes. I deplore segregation and racial prejudice; pursuant to the principles set forth at the outset of the paper, it is clearly an appropriate function of the state to prevent the use of violence and physical coercion by one group on another; equally clearly, it is not an appropriate function of the state to try to force individuals to act in accordance with my — or anyone else’s views, whether about racial prejudice or the party to vote for, so long as the action of anyone individual affects mostly himself. These are the grounds on which I oppose the proposed Fair Employment Practices Commissions; and they lead me equally to oppose forced nonsegregation. However, the same grounds also lead me to oppose forced segregation. Yet, so long as the schools are publicly operated, the only choice is between forced nonsegregation and forced segregation; and if I must choose between these evils, I would choose the former as the lesser.

The fact that I must make this choice is a reflection of the basic weakness of a publicly operated school system. Privately conducted schools can resolve the dilemma. They make unnecessary either choice. Under such a system, there can develop exclusively white schools, exclusively colored schools, and mixed schools. Parents can choose which to send their children to. The appropriate activity for those who oppose segregation and racial prejudice is to try to persuade others of their views; if and as they succeed, the mixed schools will grow at the expense of the nonmixed, and a gradual transition will take place. So long as the school system is publicly operated, only drastic change is possible; one must go from one extreme to the other; it is a great virtue of the private arrangement that it permits a gradual transition.

An example that comes to mind as illustrating the preceding argument is summer camps for children. Is there any objection to the simultaneous existence of some camps that are wholly Jewish, some wholly non-Jewish, and some mixed? One can — though many who would react quite differently to negro-white segregation — would not explore the existence of attitudes that lead to the three types; one can seek to propagate views that would tend to the growth of the mixed school at the expense of the extremes; but is it an appropriate function of the state to prohibit the unmixed camps?

The establishment of private schools does not of itself guarantee the desirable freedom of choice on the part of parents. The public funds could be made available subject to the condition that parents use them solely in segregated schools; and it may be that some such condition is contained in the proposals now under consideration by southern states. Similarly, the public funds could be made available for use solely in nonsegregated schools. The proposed plan is not therefore inconsistent with either forced segregation or forced nonsegregation. The point is that it makes available a third alternative.

3. See George J. Stigler. Employment and Compensation in Education, (National Bureau of Economic Research, Occasional Paper 1111, 1950). p. 1111.

4. The subsidizing of basic research for example. I have interpreted education narrowly so as to exclude considerations of this type which would open up an unduly wide field.

5. The increased return may be only partly in a monetary form; it may also consist of non-pecuniary advantages attached to the occupation for which the vocational training fits the individual. Similarly, the occupation may have nonpecuniary disadvantages, which would have to be reckoned among the costs of the investment.

6. For a more detailed and precise statement of the considerations entering into the choice of an occupation, see Milton Friedman and Simon Kuznets, Income from Independent Professional Practice, (National Bureau of Economic Research, N.Y., 1945). pp. 81-94, 118-37.

7. Ibid., pp. 68-69. 84. 148-51.

8. Ibid., pp. 88-94.

9. Education and Economic Well-Being in American Democracy , (Educational Policies Commission, National Education Association of United States and American Association of School Administrators, 1940).

10. Despite these obstacles to fixed money loans, I am told that they have been a very common means of financing university education in Sweden, where they have apparently been available at moderate rates of interest. Presumably a proximate explanation is a smaller dispersion of income among university graduates than in the United States. But this is no ultimate explanation and may not be the only or major reason for the difference in practice. Further study of Swedish and similar experience is highly desirable to test whether the reasons given above are adequate to explain the absence in the United States and other countries of a highly developed market in loans to finance vocational education, or whether there may not be other obstacles that could be removed more easily.

11. It is amusing to speculate on how the business could be done and on some ancillary methods of profiting from it. The initial entrants would be able to choose the very best investments, by imposing very high quality standards on the individuals they were willing to finance. If they did so, they could increase the profitability of their investment by getting public recognition of the superior quality of the individuals they financed: the legend, “Training financed by XYZ Insurance Company” could be made into an assurance of quality (like “Approved by Good Housekeeping”) that would attract custom. All sorts of other common services might be rendered by the XYZ company to “its” physicians, lawyers, dentists, and so on.

12. The point in question is familiar in connection with the disincentive effects of income taxation. An example that perhaps makes this clearer than the example in the text is to suppose that the individual can earn $5, say, by some extra work and would just be willing to do so if he could keep the whole $5 — that is, he values the non-pecuniary costs of the extra worth at just under $5. If x is say 0.10, he only keeps $4.50 and this will not be enough to induce him to do the extra work. It should be noted that a plan involving fixed money loans to individuals might be less seriously affected by differences among various uses of skills in non-pecuniary returns and costs than the plan for equity investment under consideration. It would not however be unaffected by them; such differences would tend to produce different frequencies of default depending on the use made of the skill and so unduly favor uses yielding relatively high non-pecuniary returns or involving relatively low non-pecuniary costs. I am indebted to Harry G. Johnson and Paul W. Cook, Jr., for suggesting the inclusion of this qualification. For a fuller discussion of the role of non-pecuniary advantages and disadvantages in determining earnings in different pursuits. See Friedman and Kuznets, loc. cit.

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New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

The critical role of education for sustainable development and getting every learner climate-ready

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Education for a sustainable future

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) reorients education to empower learners of all ages to act for environmental integrity, economic viability and a more equitable society. As part of the ongoing work on ESD, UNESCO will hold a special side event during the 42nd General Conference, highlighting the critical role of ESD through good practice and activities relating to greening education. The event will feature the UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development award ceremony, where the 2023 champion laureates will present their project or initiative on sustainable development and receive a cash prize of 50 000 USD to further develop their mission and objectives.  

Following the conferral of the award, H.R.H. Princess Abze Djigma, Burkina Faso , Chair of the International Jury of the UNESCO-Japan Prize and Chair of the  H.R.H. Princess Abze Djigma Foundation , will moderate a panel discussion on greening education and getting every learner climate-ready, as part of  the Greening Education Partnership’s mission and work. 

This event will be livestreamed.

ESD-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development

The UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for sustainable development , funded by the Government of Japan, consists of three annual awards of USD 50,000 for each recipient. It was awarded for the first time by the Director-General of UNESCO in November 2015.

The Prize and award winners recognize the role of education in connecting the social, economic, cultural and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. It was established by the Executive Board of UNESCO at its 195th session within the framework of the Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD and officially announced at the UNESCO World Conference on ESD (10-12 November 2014, Aichi-Nagoya, Japan).

Greening Education Partnership

Climate change is one of ESD’s longstanding thematic areas. The Greening Education Partnership was launched in 2022 as one of the global initiatives of the Transforming Education Summit. 80 Member States and 1000 member organizations have joined the Partnership to work together to collectively address the climate emergency. The Partnership aims to respond to the urgent call for education to get every learner climate-ready through its four pillars of transformative education: greening schools, curriculum, teacher training and education systems’ capacities, and communities.

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10 Important Roles Of Technology In Education

• Post Author: edmonger
• Post published: July 28, 2021
• Post Category: Ed Tech Solutions / Trends and Insights
• Post Comments: 3 Comments

We can’t deny the fact that the developed world we see today can never be possible without the evaluation of technology. Even the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) promotes the Important roles of technology in education. Only through a technology driven education system, students have innovative learning solutions.

In this pandemic era of Covid-19, it would have never been possible for teachers to make students efficient learners at home if technology was not introduced. In addition, technology allows students to learn more effectively via online educational tools.

What is the Importance of Technology in Education?

The vital roles of technology in education is that teachers can serve all study material so that students can better understand the topics and solve the problem easier via Edtech. Educational technology approaches modern classroom / Smart classes, which primarily focus on improvising the performance of every student.

To understand the Importance of Technology in Education and how a new generation impacts the change in the whole education scenario, one must go through this article beneath the last section.

Why Technology Is Important In Education?

The important roles of technology in education lead to improve quality of studying; better communication facilitates skills and knowledge to students. Apart from that, with E-learning technology tools, students can access study material from any geographical area, wherever they go.

In spite of having various higher technology driven Education tools, schools are still using the pen/ pencil-and-paper methods for learning. However, via EdTech, the whole education structure has been revolutionized, enriching the learning process at just one fingertip of students.

Imperative Roles of Technology in Education

Here we have created this article to make you aware of the Important roles of technology in education for students as well as parents and teachers, have a glance –

• Promotes Effective Educational system 

Undoubtedly, since technology is introduced in the classroom, it encourages the overall growth of students. Technology is a robust process to promote a healthy educational system worldwide. The Most Important roles of technology in education makes learning more accessible, exciting and enjoyable. The development of technological advancements in education leads to enhance knowledge and skills of students. 

• Technology Helps Students Learn Much And Better

Any of us still wondering that how important is technology in Education? Thus, let me inform you that a survey has proved that digital learning technology helps most students improve their grades. Furthermore, through technology-based E-learning, students can learn more and better from different resources without depending on an institution or an instructor. 

The most important thing is that technology helps learners more easily in their field. Such as, Students can convert or type text in handwritten style with an online text to handwriting converter tool.This tool allows them to share their educational notes in handwriting style. Which makes it more appealing and eye-catching and also plays an important role in the modern age.

• Improvise better Communication and Collaboration

We all know that the existence of technology has improved communication and collaboration to a better level. Likewise, Educational technology also boosted communication and collaboration between teachers and students and students/ parents, teachers/parents, and peers. 

Teachers can interact with students to clear their doubts and make e-learning more effective. Technology enables one-on-one interaction in the classroom online.

• Provide Teachers More Resources  

Educational technology provides teachers plenty of e-learning tools like Gamification, AR / VR, smartboards etc. Through Advanced modern technology of education, teachers can use various digital tools to magnify learning opportunities for students. 

E-learning solution technologies enable teachers to improve their teaching skills. From technology, teachers can instruct well through video lessons, microlearning, attractive infographics etc. Moreover, teachers can engage the students by delivering online tests and different courses.

• Learning At Own Pace

The important roles of technology in education is to students as they can learn at any time and from anywhere. With the technology-based E-learning process, one can study in their comfort zone. Students can play, pause and re-watch complex topics using online educational applications until the concept is clear. 

Also Check – Importance of Online Teaching

• More Opportunities For Online Project-Based Learning

Most schools are opting now for online Project-Based Learning instead of wasting time on pen paper-based projects. Edtech solutions have also made Project-Based learning much more accessible and convenient for students. Now, one can create presentations using Google Classroom, Google Docs, PPT and Slides, etc. Through online Project-Based Learning, students use their skills and knowledge up to the next level to complete an assignment.

• Personalized Learning Opportunities

The importance Of Technology in Education is not just limited to efficient learning, but students can also have their personalized learning opportunities. Availability of more resources/ material 24*7 to students allows them to personalize learning better. We all know that not all students have the same learning frequency; thus, personalized learning is considered. Personalize learning is also known as self-paced learning, which can help individuals optimize the quantity of material according to their capability.

• Efficient Problem Solving Stuff

Well, studying without having any doubts can be possible only through modern intelligent classes. Video modules of every concept help each of you to cut out the doubts. So, If any problem arises in any topic, just go through Problem Solving material and clear all doubts.

• Better Understanding through Graphics

Technology has evaluated the learning process through video graphics, which helps the human mind understand the concept faster and remember it for a long time. This can be only possible because of the visual information system. Using VR technology in education, students can retain knowledge by 25% to 60%. Using VR educational technology like gamification, mobile learning, microlearning, visual graphics etc. students can experience fun and learning at the same time and keep engaged with their studies. 

• Save Time And Money

With the availability of more study material via E-learning technology, the student can spend less money on other materials. Even nowadays, many schools are more focusing on buying online study material, which is cheaper and convenient for storage. Teachers can save time and money by teaching students via advanced educational, technological systems like augmented reality and virtual reality programs free of cost online and helps one to learn and understand faster.

Challenges of Educational Technology

Besides various Importance Of Technology in Education, India still lacks somewhere to explore the technological educational system. Somehow, we are facing Challenges in establishing modern Educational Technology in the schools. 

More screen study time may also lead to some severe health issues. For example, continues use of computers, tablets, and phones for studies may cause back pain, neck pain, blurred vision and more.

In Online classes, teachers cannot monitor every student; this makes them lure them towards cheating. The latest Technology encourages the cheating process among students by sharing test sheets, copy-pasting each other answers, Google answers during the online class test.

Impact of Technology in Education

In today’s world, we all are interlinked with technology everywhere in our daily lives. So why not use Technology in Education. Technology is the only tool that helps to improve the education system in different ways. From teachers to students, technology leaves a vast impact on education. Modern EdTech makes education more flexible and perceptive. Various technology driven education tools have introduced free online resources, personalized learning materials, more engaging content, and a better understanding of visuals and opportunities for advanced learning.

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The Future of OER in Higher Education

• Open educational resources can be integrated into college courses to make higher education more engaging, accessible, and affordable for students.
• The advent of generative artificial intelligence provides instructors with new, more efficient ways to develop and update OER so that these materials stay aligned with evolving trends and course objectives.
• Many microcredentialing courses now use OER, which allows students to develop in-demand skills without paying the high cost of traditional higher education.

The past few years have brought drastic changes to higher education, in both how students learn and how instructors teach. Whether due to  increases in remote and hybrid learning  during the COVID-19 pandemic or the growing prominence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), business educators have had to adapt to change quickly, often without much institutional support.

Even through all this upheaval, textbooks have remained the most popular course material in higher education, according to a  survey conducted  by the research firm Bay View Analytics. However, increasingly instructors are replacing print materials such as hardcopy textbooks and homework handouts with digital options such as online textbooks and homework assistance platforms. Instructors also have embraced open educational resources (OER). Bay View’s data also show that the percentage of educators using OER as required course materials nearly doubled between the 2019–20 and 2022–23 academic years, from 15 percent to 29 percent.

Creative Commons  defines OER  as “teaching, learning, and research materials that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.” Lacking traditional copyright restrictions, these materials permit instructors to engage more easily in the  5Rs : remixing, retaining, revising, reusing, and redistributing the materials.

These materials offer many benefits for instructors and students, addressing both existing and emerging challenges. But today, the versatility of OER is evolving with the advent of GenAI and the increasing popularity of alternative, skills-based educational paths. The latest developments in OER are allowing instructors and business programs to create and use these resources to make the educational experience more engaging, accessible, and relevant to all learners.

The Challenges of Print

Regardless of institution size or course level, business instructors and students collectively face several common challenges when using traditional print-based course materials:

Cost— Most faculty responding to Bay View’s survey view the cost of educational materials as “a serious problem” for their students. Postsecondary students spend, on average, between  628 USD and 1,200 USD  annually on textbooks and related resources. In some cases, students have reported that they  take fewer classes , withdraw from courses, change their majors, or even drop out of college entirely because they cannot afford required materials. Others have reported that they  skip meals  or take on additional part-time jobs and shifts at work to afford their textbooks.

Print textbooks often contain outdated information and data, but it’s no longer sufficient for students to view graphs using information that is several years old.

Time— It can take several days or weeks for students to purchase the required materials for their classes. Moreover, knowing that many students forgo buying required materials because of cost, instructors often feel that they must derive core course content directly from the textbook. As a result, they must divert class time away from experiential learning, hindering their ability to teach students effectively.

Relevance— Print textbooks often contain  outdated information and data , but it’s no longer sufficient for students to view graphs related to economic productivity or income inequality using information that is several years old. Likewise, it is no longer appropriate for students to read case studies from once-prominent sectors and companies whose significance is sharply declining, as they are supplanted by new and  growing industries . In today’s data-driven age, it’s essential for students to have access to the most recent analytics and quantitative research. 

Customization— The rise of remote learning and GenAI has heightened the need for instructors to personalize classroom resources and experiences to meet individual students’ needs. This is very difficult to do in introductory business courses with hundreds of students—and nearly impossible to do with commercially published print textbooks.

The OER option helps instructors address these issues. Available in the public domain or under an open license, OER can be customized to align with course objectives and amended with updated information and data. For instance, instructors can update an existing chart or graph with newer data or replace an older case study with one involving an industry or company more relevant to today’s students.

Because these resources are free, students do not have to decide how or whether they can afford required textbooks. Likewise, instructors can teach with confidence, knowing that all students have required course materials on the first day of class.

When OER Meets GenAI

The rise of GenAI is reshaping OER just as it is  reshaping higher education . Institutions are experimenting with GenAI to streamline time-consuming tasks involved with planning and teaching a course—and this can include finding, creating, and implementing OER.

For example, schools such as the  University of Texas at San Antonio  and  West Virginia University  in Morgantown offer grants to faculty who implement existing or create original OER to address time and resource barriers.  Miami University  in Oxford, Ohio, and the  University of Massachusetts Amherst  now consider their faculty’s OER development in tenure and promotion decisions.

GenAI can help instructors take even more of the legwork out of OER creation and adoption. Artificial intelligence can act as a kind of teaching assistant that instructors can use to quickly complete previously time-consuming tasks, such as:

• Proofreading and receiving feedback on the OER that they create.
• Generating descriptive alt text and captions for images.
• Creating discussion prompts, homework questions, practice problems, and assignments.
• Finding current examples of industries and companies relevant to today’s students (asking an AI tool, for example, to suggest information related to Instagram instead of MySpace).
• Finding real-world examples of how certain sectors, organizations, and products apply specific business concepts, such as disruptive innovation or product life cycles.
• Providing updated information on the business legal environment.
• Creating assessments and rubrics.
• Translating existing open-license content into other languages.
• Updating existing OER with examples that allow increasingly  diverse cohorts  of undergraduate students to see themselves in the course material. For instance, GenAI can help instructors more easily integrate cases that involve organizations with  diverse leadership  or entrepreneurs from  historically underrepresented backgrounds .

Created by and for the educational community, OER can offer instructors a great deal of flexibility and versatility in designing their courses in ways that align with learning objectives and meet student needs. That said, GenAI cannot replace the critical role instructors play in OER creation. Given the  murky legality  surrounding AI and copyright, business instructors should be transparent about their use of AI and provide appropriate attributions.

Additionally, instructors should fact-check AI outputs such as case studies, examples, and statistics to ensure the information that AI tools provide is correct. There already have been many incidents in which ChatGPT has provided users with false statistics, made-up examples , and  other glaring errors —known as  hallucinations . Such errors underscore the importance of responsible GenAI use when creating course materials.

Nonetheless, by using GenAI tools responsibly, instructors can significantly streamline OER creation and customization in ways that improve their students’ learning experiences.

OER’s Role in Microcredentials

Employers increasingly  rely on microcredentials  to fill skills gaps in their workforces and consider microcredentials in place of traditional college degrees. Meanwhile, students are turning to microcredentials to  gain in-demand career skills  without attending—and paying tuition to—four-year universities. OER adoption is evolving to address the growing interest in these alternative, skills-based educational paths.

One initiative using open materials in microcredentials is  OERu , an international network of more than 40 partner universities, including Penn State in State College and  BCcampus , a platform that supports postsecondary education in British Columbia, Canada. With funding from UNESCO, the platform offers accredited, online  microcredentialing courses  based on OER. Each full course consists of a set of micro Open Online Courses (mOOCs), which students worldwide can take for free.

Many universities now have dedicated OER librarians and coordinators to aid instructors in adopting open resources in their classrooms, and others offer courses that train educators to use OER effectively.

After students complete a set of mOOCs that corresponds to a full course, they can obtain academic credit from one of the partner universities by taking a formal assessment. The assessment fees are significantly lower than the cost of full-time study, which means that students can develop in-demand skills without the burden of high tuition costs.

OERu offers a  certificate  that introduces students to the fundamentals of business and management while providing an overview of business careers across various sectors. This certificate includes 26 mOOCs, whose topics range from an  introduction to microeconomics  to the  foundations of marketing  to the  skills required to plan and manage organizations .

Institutions such as the  University of Pittsburgh  in Pennsylvania offer microcredentials in subjects such as accounting, marketing analytics, and technology management to help MBA students fully prepare for postgraduation employment. For many schools, offering OER-supported microcredentials is a viable, cost-efficient way to attract more prospective students and ensure existing students develop in-demand skills.

Open-Ended Opportunities

Educators who want to introduce OER materials into their classrooms will find that various platforms offer high-quality, timely resources. One option is OpenStax, based out of Rice University in Houston. At OpenStax, we are committed to helping educators find, create, and use OER materials. Our textbook library  now includes 16 open business textbooks . Another option is the Open Education Network (OEN), a consortium based at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Comprising more than 330 educational institutions, the OEN offers an  Open Textbook Library  with 1,459 open textbooks, including  more than 130 business titles .

Educators also can find relevant OER on other platforms—often within their own institutions. Many universities now have dedicated OER librarians and coordinators to aid instructors in adopting open resources in their classrooms. For example, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln provides a guide on OER  directed to campus librarians, and the OEN even offers a  certificate in open education librarianship . Unite!, an alliance of European universities, has developed  its own course  to train educators on using OER effectively.

Open educational resources offer a range of opportunities for educators not only to enhance students’ educational experiences, but also to reach broader audiences. Fortunately, learning how to adopt, create, and improve OER has never been easier. Educators can simply conduct a quick Internet search, meet with their institutions’ OER librarians or program coordinators, chat with a colleague—or even ask ChatGPT—to point themselves in the right direction.

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The Right Path Will Always Find You

By Grace Burkholder ’26

Jack of all trades, master of none.

How many jobs do you think an average person has in their lifetime? Surprisingly, the average person will have 13-18 jobs spanning multiple career fields. Hopefully each one will teach you something, even if it doesn't build directly upon your previous job or ideal career path.

Corey Kaeser, a University of Dayton '99 graduate, came to speak with Dr. Peter Titlebaum's Sport and Wellness Seminar about the future after graduation and how it's okay if not every senior has the rest of their life planned out. 

Kaeser is a successful businessman who has had many roles in two companies, Enpro Group and FCSEM. He also is a creator of the Hockey Shield. During his talk, he motivated many seniors to look forward to their careers after college and reassured us that things will fall into place.

Kaeser started like most students with aspirations for his future. His first big challenge was changing majors from engineering to sports management . He thought his life was all planned out, until it was not. After the switch, he knew that sports were for him. To borrow a phrase from Dr. Titlebaum, Kaeser's career opportunities taught him ' how to play the game .' 

When Kaeser was in college, he wanted to work in the ski industry. The Chevy US Alpine National Championships were happening in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, during his junior year. Kaeser called one of the event coordinators to ask for a job but was told there was no need for an extra person. After the call, Dr. Titlebaum told Kaeser to go to Jackson Hole anyway, to be there in case they needed him. Kaeser was reluctant, but decided to fly across the country with no secure job. Once he arrived, he got the opportunity to run the race results, which was not an exciting job, but he did it because he wanted to be in the ski industry so badly. After the first day, he was called in to see a manager and was told that he could shadow him and sit in for all the big meetings with Chevy. He was very thankful he had taken the chance to go to Wyoming. It is important to just go for it; you never know what might happen.

A little later in life, he shifted his career to marketing and got great opportunities, but he learned not to get cocky and altered his view of things to get a new perspective. Even later in his life, he had the opportunity to head the Enpro company's headquarters and then move to run the company internationally. With all his hard work and determination, he learned that not sticking to the script and showing what you believe will get you where you want to go.

Throughout collegiate and professional career, he noted that he had between 13-17 jobs in three different career paths. With all those obstacles and challenges, he learned to redefine himself every two years to see that he was still earning his full potential. All the opportunities that came to Kaeser may not have been the most expected path. 

Still, the unconventional structure brought him many experiences he would have never gotten if he had never gone for it. Kaeser accomplished what he believed in, giving him the most tremendous success. 

Returning to the quote, "Jack of all trades, master of none," does that have a different meaning now? Maybe if I added "but oftentimes better than master of one," is there something different to pull out of the quote? There may be obstacles to overcome in the future, but that is what life is all about: finding what works for you. 

I will leave you with this: "eliminate the excuses, achieve the results."

The Vital Role of Student Affairs

Maria Ryan '19 '24 started her UD undergraduate experience as a transfer student, and thanks to the Higher Education and Student Affairs master's program, she's now helping students like her fulfill their own educational goals.

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Opinion: what is higher ed’s role in providing ai job skills, in addition to programming and technical skills, the next generation of ai developers may also need training in subjects traditionally aligned with liberal-arts education, such as ethics, problem-solving and communication..

WHAT AI WILL DO — AND WHAT IT STILL CAN’T

Critical skills for working in ai, according to ai, ai replacing jobs in higher ed.

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• CDC Continuing Education Accreditation
• Types of CE for Health Professionals
• Roles & Responsibilities

Roles and Responsibilities

• The CE Developer is the primary point of contact for CDC during the accreditation process.
• The CE Developer must form a planning committee.
• CDC will assign a nurse planner to review the proposal and provide feedback.
• If CPE or CHES will be offered, a pharmacy planner and/or CHES planner is needed to ensure the proposal meets requirements for pharmacy and health education.

Role of the CE Developer

The CE Developer is usually the education developer within a CDC center, institute, or office (CIO) or a CDC-funded organization who serves as the primary point of contact between the organization requesting CE and CDC.

The Education Developer will also:

• Review and sign the "Responsibility Agreement and Continuing Education Timeline" which outlines deadlines for the educational activity.
• Attend an orientation with the assigned CDC CE Consultant
• Establish a planning committee.
• Provide completed CE proposal documents by the agreed upon deadlines.
• Maintain contact with all confirmed planners and presenters to get required documents from each of them.
• Defer to the CDC CE Consultant to clarify issues or uncertainties with the CE proposal documents.
• Notify the CDC CE Consultant of any changes in the CE process or educational activity title, date, or time.
• Ensure CE activity is accurately listed in CDC TRAIN.

The CE Developer should have knowledge of:

• The educational activity purpose and content
• Adult learning principles
• Assessing training needs
• Analyzing gaps in knowledge, skills, or practice
• Writing SMART learning objectives
• Writing goal statements
• Planning and implementing learning activities
• Evaluating outcomes

Forming a Planning Committee

The Education Developer must identify a group of experts that represent the activity's intended audience. This group must include a representative for each of continuing education (CE). This committee will help design and implement the educational activity. CDC can help determine which roles to include on the planning committee.

Role of Nurse Planner

CDC assigns a Nurse Planner from CDC's CE Accreditation Team to the program requesting CE for a specific educational activity. The assigned nurse planner will provide feedback during the proposal process to help ensure the proposal meets accreditation requirements. The nurse planner is a registered nurse with an active license.

Programs seeking Continuing Nursing Education (CNE) are encouraged to identify an additional nurse with an active license to serve as a planning committee member, a presenter, or subject matter expert on the content.

Primary Responsibilities

• Provide relevant insight on educational needs, intended audience, and learning assessments for each CNE activity.
• Identifying and addressing a professional practice gap.
• Identifying one or more learning outcomes.
• Using strategies to engage the learners in the educational activity.
• Ensuring content is based on the most current evidence (may include, but is not limited to evidence-based practice, literature review, clinical guidelines, best practices).
• Confirming that learning outcomes are evaluated appropriately.
• Planning independently, without influence of commercial interest organizations.

The nurse planner is familiar with:

• Adult learning principles.
• ANCC and Joint Accreditation continuing education requirements.

Role of Pharmacy Planner

The pharmacy planner is a necessary member of the planning committee for Continuing Pharmacy Education (CPE) requests. They should be a registered pharmacist with an active license.

• Serve as the pharmacy subject matter expert on the planning committee, providing relevant insight on educational needs, intended audience, and learning assessments for each CPE activity.
• Review content and objectives to ensure compliance with Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) continuing education requirements.
• Assure educational activities are planned according to current ACPE criteria, policies, and procedures.
• Assure the learning material being presented is appropriate for pharmacists.

The Pharmacy Planner should be familiar with:

• The Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Education (CAPE) objectives and educational outcomes.
• ACPE continuing education requirements.

Role of the CHES/MCHES Planner

The Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES®) /Master Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES®) Planner is a necessary part of the planning committee when requesting CHES®/MCHES® continuing education.

• Assess training needs.
• Analyze gaps in knowledge, skill, or practice.
• Plan and implement learning activities.
• Evaluate outcomes.
• Assign the appropriate competencies and/or sub-competencies from the NCHEC eight areas of responsibility.
• Serve as a liaison between the NCHEC and the planning committee.
• Review the educational activity, assess objectives and content, and assign competencies/sub-competencies.
• Assure educational activities are planned according to current NCHEC criteria, policies, and procedures.
• Assure the learning material being presented is appropriate for the target audience identified.
• Assure adult learning principles are considered in the educational activity planning process.

CDC Continuing Education (CE)

Learn how CDC accredits educational activities to support the agency's role of developing leaders and training the health workforce.

More From Forbes

What's the role of college presidents in fostering civic engagement for democracy.

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DEMOCRACY / Traffic sign

Over 60 college and university presidents are uniting to foster democracy and civic engagement during this “ urgent moment for American higher education.” The initiative, called College Presidents for Civic Preparedness , falls under the auspices of the Institute for Citizens & Scholars . The initiative is focused on preparing “the next generation of well-informed, productively engaged, and committed citizens; defending free expression, civil discourse, and critical inquiry as essential civic norms; and increasing thoughtful engagement and better understanding by students for the effective functioning of our democracy.”

Raj Vinnakota, President, Institute for Citizens & Scholars

According to Raj Vinnakota , president, of the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, “College Presidents for Civic Preparedness is truly unique as it was created by, with, and for college presidents. In 2021, [we] held conversations with numerous presidents from a range of institutions on higher education’s important role in cultivating effective citizens. It became clear that there is more that college presidents could do to advance civic preparedness—and that collaboration and partnership would drive [a] more successful, sustained impact.” He added, “We have already seen [a] significant impact, as presidents have proven their commitment to advancing civic preparedness and uplifting free expression.” For example, presidents have spread the message in student orientations, faculty trainings, graduation speeches, new courses, and speaker series. The initiative’s website provides considerable detail on the work of the group across various colleges and universities, demonstrating its actions toward fostering civic dialogue.

Jonathan Holloway, president, Rutgers University

“In an era of extreme political polarization, increasing social instability , and declining faith in the nation’s institutions, I am more committed than ever to working with university presidents to prepare students to be engaged and educated citizens,” Rutgers University president Jonathan Holloway said. “Together, with our students, we will explore how we can preserve our freedoms while being respectful and openminded, intellectually honest and curious, and civil, decent, and understanding of one another.” 1 Holloway views education not only as a means of imparting knowledge but as a vehicle of fostering democratic values and engagement.

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The presidents will pursue a set of collective actions through the initiative. These include: 1. Meeting “regularly and confidentially for peer learning and the exchange of information, ideas, practices, and tools;” 2.) Helping “faculty engage effectively with free expression and civil discourse in the classroom;” and 3.) Creating and capitalizing on opportunities for “shared advocacy and public outreach on civic preparedness in higher education.”

Garry Jenkins, president, Bates College

From the perspective of Garry W. Jenkins, president of Bates College in Maine, “The ability to manage disagreement while seeking common ground and pursuing productive solutions is critically important in a democracy. Today, unfortunately, our society is in urgent need of developing such essential skills.” He continued, “It’s clear to me that both our nation’s K-12 schools and higher education must develop, promote, and nurture the democratic skills and values of tolerance, pluralism, negotiation, and respect for different views.” Jenkins’s viewpoint is grounded in the recognition of broader societal needs and the responsibility of educational institutions to address them.

Roslyn Artis, President of Benedict College.

Presidents of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), as well as other types of Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), are also involved in the initiative. Roslyn Artis, the president of Benedict College in South Carolina is one of these presidents. She shared, “This collective approach affords us the opportunity to share best practices and to critically interrogate ideas, policies and programs for potential implementation on our campuses. While there is no one-size fits all solution, presidential participants are committed to finding constructive solutions and creating deep engagement around notions of civic engagement on college campuses.” Artis stresses the need for critical evaluation of ideas and policies to effectively promote civic engagement on college campuses.

Matthew vandenBerg, President, Ohio Wesleyan University

Matthew vandenBerg, the president of Ohio Wesleyan University stated his rationale for joining the group: “Our nation and world face daunting, vexing problems too often exacerbated by an insufficiently educated populace, cultural tribalism, the dramatic erosion of civil discourse, and a reluctance to engage in constructive dialogue. Working together, American higher education can help to build fundamentally stronger communities by developing more educated, engaged, grace-filled, and solutions-oriented citizens.” From vandenBerg’s perspective, it is vital to provide a holistic approach to higher education.

The consortium, which was first announced with 15 members in August 2023, has grown significantly, demonstrating momentum for this kind of leadership movement across higher education.

1 I am a professor at Rutgers University.

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Local news highlights UC's artificial intelligence programs

Uc offers three degree programs in ai, which touches a dozen other programs across five colleges.

Local news media turned to an expert in artificial intelligence at the University of Cincinnati to explain why this technology is becoming integral to so many disciplines in higher education.

UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science offers two master’s programs in artificial intelligence, or AI, while UC Blue Ash offers a new associate degree in AI for Workforce , developed by Intel Corp.

UC Professor Ali Minai is a champion of AI. He has studied this technology for 35 years in his lab in UC’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He holds a joint appointment in UC’s Department of Computer Science.

More than a dozen UC programs touch on AI across five colleges.

“AI is disruptive, but I don’t think people appreciate just how disruptive,” Minai said.

Minai told WLWT-5 that the technology is becoming ubiquitous.

“AI is becoming more integrated into almost everything we do. In some places it’s obvious like self-driving vehicles, drones or ChatGPT. But we use it for all kinds of applications,” he said.

Minai told WLWT-5 that UC students aren’t just learning how to use AI but how to build and troubleshoot it. Students with backgrounds in AI are in high demand across a variety of industries from computer games to finance.

WVXU also spoke to Minai about the growth in AI programs. UC launched its first master’s degree in artificial intelligence six years ago with just a few students.

“This year we had more than 100 applicants and 35 or 40 of them will be here in the fall,” he told WVXU.

Minai said society needs more AI literacy to educate people about the ways both good and bad that AI is being used today. Any technology can be misused, he warned.

But UC graduates will play a big role in shaping the technology, he said.

“Students are very excited about AI,” he said.

Watch the WLWT story.

Featured image at top: UC's programs in artificial intelligence are becoming increasingly popular. Photo/Imaginima/Unsplash

UC Professor Ali Minai tells WLWT-5 that artificial intelligence is an increasingly popular subject for incoming students in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. Photo/WLWT

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