What Is Education?.
You are, by now, familiar with the term ‘education’, ‘educated person’ ‘educating’ and so on. You must have also used these terms on several occasions in conversation with others. What do we mean by education? Does ‘teaching’ or ‘instructing’ become education? Or is it learning in an institution? Does developing the child into good human being known as education? Is it possible to have one meaning of education? There are many more such questions that come to our mind when we attempt to understand the concept of education.
Narrow Meaning of Education,
You must have come across people who consider that instruction imparted in schools and higher education institutions is nothing but education. The aims of education in these contexts are measured in terms of degrees or certification or promotion. There is a deliberate effort made with a definite purpose to develop a certain amount of knowledge, skills, attitudes and habits in these institutions. This is a narrow concept of education, which is confined only to a few specific, deliberate, and planned efforts that have a bearing on the development of the individual. The educator, in the narrow sense, aims at producing the literate or a professional person such as an engineer, a doctor, a teacher, a businessman and so on. Here, the individual is deliberately ‘taught to think’ as predetermined by the educators. Thus, in a narrow sense, education is nothing, but a purposeful activity, deliberately planned for the optimum development of an individual’s potentials.
Broader Meaning of Education
In the broader or wider sense, education is not limited to a classroom or a school only. It is considered to be a lifelong process, where all the experiences, knowledge and wisdom that an individual acquires at different stages of one’s life through different channels (i.e., formally, informally and incidentally) are termed as education. The broader view considers education as an act or experience that has formative or additive effect on the personality of an individual. It is believed that education is not only an instrument of social change, but also an investment in national development. Such a view of education encompasses all life experiences, as there is a shift in emphasis from individual development to national development. It is considered that education is a lifelong process that includes all experiences that the child receives in the school or at home, in the community and society through interactions of various sorts and activities. The broader meaning of education implies the process of development, wherein the individual gradually adapts himself/herself in various ways to his/her physical, social and spiritual environments.
Education as Process and Product
There is always a controversy whether education is a process or a product. Mostly, we consider education as a product, that is, something that has been produced as a result of certain inputs which in this case is instruction or experiences. In this sense, it is the sum total of what is received through learning — the knowledge, skills, values that are the outcomes of learning. The concept of education as acquisition of knowledge was prevalent since the beginning of history of education. Many literature sources and the religious doctrines have propounded that ‘knowledge is power’ and ‘knowledge is virtue’. Even now, it is believed that knowledge leads to wisdom. Education becomes a product only when it assimilates the culture of any society, and is transmitted from one generation to another. Education fosters values in people, which are universally accepted as valuable at a given point of time. Transmission of knowledge or skills which takes place as a purposeful activity in a variety of ways could be termed as the product of education.
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