The Purpose of Education

Education is not an activity we undertake just for its own sake, but always because we want to achieve something or bring something about. Talking about education thus always raises the question as to what is the “purpose of education”. There are quite different views about what education should be for, not only depending on people’s understandings of what education ‘is’ but also, and more importantly, depending on the values they hold and the views they have about what education ought to achieve. Viewed from this angle it is actually quite difficult to make any clear statement about what the purpose or purposes of education should be.

It is often noted that many people have a misconception of the purpose of education. Most of them think that education should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses. Still others think that education should furnish them with noble ends rather than means to an end.

If one were to perform a critical analysis, than it would seem that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture.

Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.

Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively and to think for one’s self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half-truths, prejudices, and propaganda.

That is why many wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, is one of the chief aims of education.

Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.

We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one, not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living.

“The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows”