The nature and purpose of education
A discussion of the nature and purpose of education is an essential preliminary to any discussion of the relationship between schools and the community they serve. One of the most significant features of education in most societies in the twentieth century, especially in its final decades, was the increasingly technical nature of schooling. The curriculum became much narrower and more technically focused, notably through the emphasis on literacy and numeracy. This reductionist approach has had the effect, in combination with prevailing models of accountability, of raising standards. However the definition of standards is so narrow and instrumental that there is a danger that success in schooling has marginalised a broader concept of educating.
The dominant purpose of education in many national systems is economic; the creation of an employable workforce. The key measure of such employability has been seen as literacy and numeracy. Parallel with this growing emphasis has been increasing concern about the implications of this approach.
[These results] suggest strongly that more attention might be paid to the non-academic behaviour and development of children … It also suggests that schooling ought not to be assessed solely on the basis of the production of reading and maths ability. (Feinstein, L. in Mulford and Silius, 2001)
What was seen historically as one constituent of education, academic success, has now become the dominant force which, because of its links with accountability, has tended to drive out the other dimensions. The practical results of this, in England, are to be found in the marginalisation of the humanities, the arts and the engagement of schools in a broader range of activities usually classified as the extra-curricular. Thus, in England and similar education systems, education has in effect become academic schooling. Recognition of the problems this might cause has resulted, in England, in the introduction of citizenship to the curriculum. However, it has been introduced as a subject – it has been commodified. What should be a set of social activities and behaviours has been rendered an artificial construct – a subject rather than a way of life.
It is dangerous, and over-ambitious, to try and produce the definitive definition of what education should be. But in the context of this book certain fundamental propositions can be advanced; the most basic statement is found in article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to
the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall
promote understanding, tolerance and friendship.
This statement can be elaborated into a number of specific propositions about the purpose of education:
- to enhance the personal, social, cultural, ethical and spiritual development of every individual;
- to prepare people to play an active part in their communities as citizens in a democracy;
- to develop the potential to be employable and to play a full economic role in society;
- to maximise life chances through academic success;
- to create a society founded in acceptance and tolerance.
If these fundamental propositions are accepted as a benchmark, education is essentially a social process. How strange then that education in most so-called advanced societies is usually expressed through a system of schooling. Schools are essentially artificial constructs; they bureaucratise the education process through time, place and content. Education is commodified into packages terms, subjects, schemes of work, etc. The twentieth century saw the increasing divorce of schools from the realities of life in community, society and work. This is in sharp distinction to the view of Henry Morris, arguably one of the key figures in the theory and practice of community approaches in education, who stated that:
We should abolish the barriers which separate education from all those activities which make up adult living … It should be the first duty of education to concern itself with the ultimate goals of education.
(Bowring-Carr et al., 2000: 6)
The dominant trends in most English-speaking education systems in recent decades have been to reinforce the bureaucratic infrastructure of schools; to narrow the definition of academic success and to promulgate the view that the primary purpose of education is economic – in both personal and national terms. In the context of a narrow and constraining model of accountability, the effect has been to reinforce the institutional insularity of schools and to exacerbate the impact of social and economic factors on organisational success. The net result of these trends has been, paradoxically, to weaken the links between schools and their communities while demonstrating the importance and significance of such links.
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