Education

Challenges in education

The goal of education is the transference of ideas from one person to another, or from one person to a group.

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Current education issues include which teaching method(s) are most effective, how to determine what knowledge should be taught, which knowledge is most relevant, and how well the pupil will retain incoming knowledge. Educators such as George Counts and Paulo Freire identified education as an inherently political process with inherently political outcomes. The challenge of identifying whose ideas are transfered and what goals they serve has always stood in the face of formal and informal education.

Related Topics:
George Counts - Paulo Freire

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In addition to the "Three R's", reading, writing, and arithmetic, Western primary and secondary schools attempt to teach the basic knowledge of history, geography, mathematics (usually including calculus and algebra), physics, chemistry and sometimes politics, in the hope that students will retain and use this knowledge as they age. The current education system measures competency with tests and assignments and then assigns each student a corresponding grade. The grades usually come in the form of either a letter grade or a percentage, which are intended to represent the amount of all material presented in class that the student understood. However, these grades do not necessarily reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a student. There is growing concern about the lack of youth voice in the educative process, and those effects on schooling. Some feel the current grading sytem risks lowering students' self-esteem and self-confidence, as students may receive poor marks due to factors outside their control. Such factors include poverty, child abuse, and prejudiced or incompetent teachers.

Related Topics:
Reading - Writing - Arithmetic - History - Geography - Mathematics - Calculus - Algebra - Physics - Chemistry - Politics - Youth voice - Self-esteem - Self-confidence - Child abuse - Prejudice

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Albert Einstein, one of the most famous physicists of our time, credited with helping us understand the universe better, was not a model school student. He was uninterested in what was being taught, and he did not attend classes all the time. However, his gifts eventually shone through and added to the sum of human knowledge.

Related Topics:
Albert Einstein - Physicist

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Every child has certain gifts and abilities, but early and later childhood education rarely tries to find out what that may be and help the students develop that. If children are good at something they will excel in that subject, and if they do not, they may not do as well.

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This brings us to a major critique of modern western education. It exposes children to a wide variety of disciplines which is good, but subjects are taught, tested, and then the children are generally not required to remember the content from before.

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There are also some dilemmas about the teaching of knowledge. Should some knowledge be forgotten? What should be taught, are we better off knowing how to build nuclear bombs, or is it best to let such knowledge be forgotten?

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Education is the imparting of knowledge, not the continuous testing of knowledge, it should be about skills that students can recreate for the rest of their life, rather than a mark they can show.

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The below should be edited by someone with ideas of how to improve education because it does injustice to say that we are the best that we can be - education as we have it now is better than not having any at all. But it leaves much to be desired.-->

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In well-developed countries

In developed countries, teachers worry little about the process of education because there are set guidelines that they have to follow. A reoccuring problem is the difficulty of keeping students attention and actually teaching them something they will retain throughout life. (see Current issues in teaching). Program Evaluation answers questions such as whether different methods of education (public, private, home, or other schooling) "work", or how to improve education. One example is the Program for International Student Assessment from the OECD.

Related Topics:
Current issues in teaching - Program Evaluation - Program for International Student Assessment - OECD

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A difficulty in making decisions on how to educate children is the contradiction between compulsory education and nurturing the concept of personal freedom in Western society. This has lead to parents in some countries choosing to home school their children where it is permitted. A perceived lack of rigour or the alleged presence of political correctness drives this trend too - whilst most common in the USA, British authors such as Peter Hitchens and Alexander Deane wrie about it in the UK context, too.

Related Topics:
Freedom - Western society - Home school - Political correctness - British - Authors - Peter Hitchens - Alexander Deane - UK

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Another reason for home schooling may also be perceived over-education, as well as the over-emphasis on examination results versus student-driven discovery and exploration of subjects (the sausage machine analogy).

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A question studied by educational sociologists is that of the "hidden curriculum" which enforces societal status quo by providing different educations to children of different social classes.

Related Topics:
Hidden curriculum - Societal

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Bullying has been identified as a challenge in many schools; however, this may merely reflect current political and social trends in American society.

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In developing countries

In developing countries, the number and seriousness of the problems faced is naturally greater. People are sometimes unaware of the importance of education, and there is economic pressure from those parents who prioritize their children's making money in the short term over any long-term benefits of education. Recent studies on child labor and poverty have suggested, however, that when poor families reach a certain economic threshold where families are able to provide for their basic needs, parents return their children to school. This has been found to be true, once the threshold has been breached, even if the potential economic value of the children's work has increased since their return to school. Teachers are often paid less than other similar professions.

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A lack of good universities, and a low acceptance rate for good universities is evident in countries with a relatively high population density. In some countries there are uniform, overstructured, inflexible centralized programs from a central agency that regulates all aspects of education.

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• Due to globalization, increased pressure on students in curricular activities
• Removal of a certain percentage of students for improvisation of academics (usually practised in schools, after 10th grade)

India however is starting to develop technologies that will skip land based phone and internet lines. Instead, they have launched a special education satellite that can reach more of the country at a greatly reduced cost. There is also an initiative started by AMD and other corporations to develop the $100 dollar computer which should be ready by 2006. This computer will be sold in units of 1 million, and will be assembled in the country where the computer will be used. This apperas to be a different computer to that developed by MIt, with the same price tag, believed to be ppowered by clockwork and a generator. This will enable poorer countries to give their children a digital education and to close the digital divide across the world.

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In Africa, NEPAD has launched an "e-school programme" to provide all 600,000 primary and high schools with computer equipment, learning materials and internet access within 10 years.

Related Topics:
NEPAD - E-school programme

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