MEANING OF EDUCATION

• Education is a basic activity in all human societies, essential for the survival of society through the transmission of culture to the young.
• The continued existence of society depends on ensuring that every new generation is trained in the ways of the group to continue the same tradition.
• Every society has its own methods of fulfilling the educational need.
• The term education is derived from the Latin word educare, meaning to “bring up” or “bring forth.”
• The purpose of education is not only to impart knowledge but to develop habits and attitudes in individuals to help them face the future successfully.
• Varro, a Latin author, stated that: the midwife brings forth, the nurse brings up, the tutor trains, and the masterteaches.
• Plato believed the goal of education was to develop beauty and perfection in both the body and the soul, encapsulated in the idea of “a sound mind in a sound body” (mens sana in corpore sano).
• Aristotle argued that the aim of education is to develop a person’s faculties, especially the mind, so they can enjoy the contemplation of supreme truth, goodness, and beauty, which leads to perfect happiness.
• Peter Worsley emphasized that education is a main waking activity for children from ages five to fifteen and beyond, and a large part of social and technical skills is acquired through deliberate instruction.
• Education is a major expenditure in both developed and developing countries.
• Education employs a large workforce and plays a significant role in modern industrialized societies.
• Sociologists are increasingly focused on the role of educational institutions in society, leading to the establishment of the new branch called Sociology of Education.

Definition of Education

• Durkheim views education as “the socialisation of the younger generation,” where it is a continuous effort to impose ways of seeing, feeling, and acting that the child would not have arrived at spontaneously.
• Sumner defines education as the transmission of the mores of the group to the child, teaching them what conduct is approved or disapproved, and how they should behave and believe in various situations.
• F.J. Brown and J.S. Roucek describe education as “the sum total of the experience” that shapes the attitudes and conduct of both children and adults.
• James Welton (in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition) states that education is an attempt by adult members of society to shape the development of the next generation based on their own ideals of life.
• A.W. Green explains that historically, education meant the conscious training of the young to adopt adult roles, but in modern times, it refers to formal training by specialists within the formal structure of the school.
• Samuel Koenig defines education as the process where the social heritage of a group is passed from one generation to the next, as well as the process through which the child becomes socialized by learning the behavior rules of the group they are born into.