On Education: A Brief Statement Concerning the Insufficiency

Treatise On the Pedagogies of Today:

The following article is only the first part of “Treatise On the Pedagogies of Today”, a series of articles discussing education and epistemology that will be periodically published. Every article will be a companion to the previous one and the opinions presented here are merely those of the author and do not represent the organization in its totality.

On Education: A Brief Statement Concerning the Insufficiency

Education, whether it concerns the continuing one of adults or of young children, is undoubtedly one of the most imperative spheres in society worldwide. The perceptions of education vary culturally: from the intense, competitive academics of nations like South Korea, Japan, and India, to the more academically lax attitudes of countries like the United States; however, the majority of nations agree that having an educated population signifies having a knowledgeable and responsible pool of democratic voters, a group of individuals possessing valuable skills, and overall more job prospects for the population.

Statistically, one out of every five children worldwide is not currently attending a school or another educational institution of the same value. This figure has seldom fluctuated in the past years. According to the same statistic, the number of children out of school in sub-Saharan Africa is one out of every three. This statistic unequivocally communicates the educational crisis that we are experiencing as a united nation. As a result of this absence from schools (and other related institutions), there is a lower level of proficiency in reading and mathematics, especially in less developed countries (LDCs) and areas of poverty within newly industrialized countries (NICs) like India, where the wealth is not distributed evenly according to the Gini Coefficient (Gini coefficient in India went up from 0.43 between 1995 and 1996 to 0.45 from 2004 to 2005). According to the 2015 World Wealth Report, India had 198,000 high net worth individuals, with an annual income of over $1 million and a combined wealth of $785 billion3. This absence from schools is mostly caused by children not being able to efficiently study and remain in school, due to them being indirectly forced to work a menial job to financially support their families or work at farms to provide sustenance; this is supported by the fact that parents in these areas are statistically prone to having more children to aid them in the aforementioned work.

Additionally, while levels of reading proficiency and common mathematical abilities are at risk, literacy rates worldwide have been increasing. Notwithstanding this fact, there still remains approximately 773 million adults not possessing the ability to read proficiently or at all. The sheer amount of adults on this list represent what will ultimately become of children who are bound by their work, rather than their studies. Our goal as a society should be to ensure that no child will grow up to become part of this harrowing statistic; though, with the way governments of LDCs and NICs treat their education, we will likely not achieve this in the foreseeable future.

So in order for us, especially the members of already developed and postindustrial societies, to prevent events like these from occurring, we must contribute at least a portion of our endeavors to aiding the education of children. Subjectively it might appear preposterous that your infinitesimal contribution might actually create any sort of notable or significant benefit; it does. Whether this means becoming a member of a local education organization, promoting educational institutions through your limited influence, donating to charities concerning the education of children, becoming engaged in local schools- it all truly counts.

Another priority should be providing education for children beyond the school. Parents hold skills which they can convey to their children; it can be assisting with their homework, teaching them a new skill, or forming a personal curriculum complementary to the school’s. Autodidactic readings should be promoted. It is crucial that children should be able to educate themselves and learn independently, not only forming a genuine passion for learning, which should ultimately be the goal of any education but discovering new skills and fields which they can be potentially skilled at. Through autodidactic learning, children are able to expose themselves to fields, skills, and methods of learning that personally fit them. A child might have special needs that cannot be offered through a general education along with peers, or a child might be precocious, having the ability to move forward without depending on peers, which is a viable way to learn if it is comfortable to them- and so individual learning and special services should be promoted.

More funds should be sincerely allocated to schools and institutions, not just for their personal needs and environment-building, but to sponsor charities, non-profit organizations, global initiatives, and local charters whose primary objective is educating less fortunate children, children with developmental or cognitive disabilities, or previous delinquent children seeking rehabilitation and reintroduction into society and schools.

Being able to truly gift a manner of learning to a child or young adult that desperately requires it is a task that we, as a community of interconnected individuals, should fulfill despite any obstacles, for such a sect of society is a pillar that shan’t go unattended, but instead, deliberately be taken care of and continuously checked for adequacy.

David Alfonso is a staff writer at Generation Connected.

Sources:

UNESCO Institute for Statistics

Ourworldindata.org Max Roser and Esteban-Ortiz Ospina

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_India