The role of an education in our society

In the current essay I would like to consider the role of an education in our society and why it is so important nowadays. To begin with it should be noted that education is part of the process of socialization, which provides a formalized targeted transfer of experience and knowledge to succeeding generations, which form a part of the relevant social institutions. In turn, social institutions coordinate education and formalize the activities of many people, designed to meet such a timeless, socially important needs, as the training needs of the younger members of society, transfer of scientific and practical knowledge, values, ideologies, social norms, professional skills and other abilities. 

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It can be said that to implement these activities in the community is formed a system of educational institutions: secondary schools, colleges, technical schools, colleges, academies and universities. According to Tulsa Tiwari (2009), educational programs, which are used in these educational institutions are standardized and interconnected, which determines the unification of education. In traditional society, education in schools was not available to general population. Basically, educated were only religious leaders, priests etc. For most members of the public process, education was limited to spontaneous learn from social experience and professional skills of the older generations. However, the process of industrializations has spurred the need for educational institutions. Consequently, gradually education in its current form began to appear, involving the transfer of knowledge by professional educators, in specially constructed buildings on the special education programs. As a result, today the training process is dominated by an abstract disciplines, as members of modern society should not have only basic skills (reading, writing, counting), but also have knowledge about surrounding physical world, about society, its economic activity and so on. Also, in modern society is extremely important the students’ ability to self-education, that creates new and sometimes very specific forms of knowledge. 

According to Manali Oak (2010), it can be said that XX century had a decisive role in the development of the education system. As a fact, in early 1900-ies the goal of education has changed for education for all and, as a result, the number of people with higher education, scientific degrees significantly increased. Today, the problems of development of modern education system mostly associated with its humanization, humanitarization and internationalization. It should be noted that humanization of education suggests the direction of greater attention to the interests, needs of the individual, his moral development. In turn, humanitarization means focusing on the study of social sciences and internationalization of education leads to the creation of a unified education system for various countries.

Among the social institutions of modern society education plays a vital role as one of the major branches of human activity. At its core, education is a purposeful cognitive activity of people acquires knowledge and skills or improves them. The main purpose of education is the communion of the individuals to the achievements of human civilization, relaying and preservation of its cultural heritage. As a fact, during the training process, student learns the experience of the previous generations and receives the basis for further independent creative work in a chosen field of activity. Without any doubts, the quality of education in a certain society largely depends on the pace of its economic and political development, the moral condition of its citizens. The basic institution of modern education system is school. In school student acquires the general knowledge about the world and skills of behavior in the society.

The rapid development of scientific and technological progress has brought the necessity of reforming both the structure and content of educational system. Among the main directions of ongoing educational reforms can be identified following:

The democratization of education and training process;

The humanization and the humanitarization of education; 

The computerization of the educational process; 

The internationalization of education, according to Robert Grice (2010).

Moreover, with the aim of more rapid implementation of these directions by the UN it was proposed to modify the organization and technology training to do a full-fledged subject of the student’s educational process. Today is truly effective is the model of education, within which there is a departure from the authoritarian style of behavior of the teacher, reducing its role as a source of information and knowledge. Also, UN proposes to develop a new system for judging the effectiveness of educational results. These results should not be obtained by students with the knowledge and skills, but also the level of creative and moral development of their personalities. This is necessary in the light of the global challenges, which humanity will face in the XXI century.

According toTulsa Tiwari (2009), it can be stated that modern education means solving the major problems not only for society but also for individuals. This is one of the most important stages in the long process of socialization. Under the current conditions, the role of education as a social institution, which main function is the socialization of the individual relates in creating constantly changing conditions to meet the needs of society. In particular, the most important in this process is the general education system, which differs popularity of the inclusion in the educational process of all social strata and groups, in the period of forming the basic social characteristics and value-motivational personality structure. 

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In the transition to an information society the most important trend is increasing the role of not just mass, but also quality education; advance it one of the main resources of mobility, acquisition of social capital of the individuals. The current state of the quality of education reflects the growing contradiction between, on the one hand, the increasing demands of society to the morality and intelligence of human, his ability to design, forecasting, and, on the other hand, the actual level of education and development of graduates of educational institutions.

It is extremely important to mention that the actual level of education is often below the current requirements, which reinforces the trend of total and functional illiteracy, the danger of spiritual and intellectual impoverishment of society. However, nowadays in assessing the quality of the result of education (personal development of students), the educational activities of teachers and the education of the school administrations, education authorities are often guided by the traditional indicators of statistical reporting, because there are no general requirements and techniques to assess not only the content of education, but also its quality. 

As a matter of fact, in such circumstances, increases the value of a sociological analysis of the problem, development of methodological framework and methods for studying and evaluating the quality of education. To be more precise, many studies show good results in the quality of education nowadays, however, it is connected with the specific of social sciences, that not always use objective methods of education quality evaluation, including the system of social processes, connections and relationships that characterize the interaction of education and society, education and personality. 

Of course, such problems of education are not new. According to Robert Grice (2010), these problems were discussed for decades by scientists, educators, writers, parents, community and state leaders, but it still remained relevant. However, the reality convinces us otherwise: each new step in the development of culture, socio-political situation, the scientific methodology compelling look at education with new vision and see that it has escaped or was not available to other researchers. The fact is that the volume of accumulated knowledge is growing rapidly, while the speed with which this knowledge is absorbed and enriched by one man, remains constant, leading to further specialization and fragmentation of education. As a result, we have such tendency: the greater the amount of knowledge is, the greater is the need for specialization to absorb this knowledge and creating new ones. Moreover, each scientist tends to concentrate his research on more narrow areas of knowledge. Symbiosis between knowledge and specialization affects not only education but also the structure of occupations and, in fact, the concept of a profession. It can be said that the growth of knowledge, particularly in developing areas of science and technology, has geometric progression. If the sole purpose of education was the creation of new specialized knowledge, its achievement would not have been difficult. But the desire to seek new knowledge and the consequent fragmentation of the education process has an impact on other goals of education. Primarily, this leads to a corresponding fragmentation of teaching and reduce the opportunities of education for public purposes. 

To sum it up I would like to say that educated and literate people – is the driving force behind the development of humanity in the XXI century. As a fact, if human does not develop himself, he does not go forward, this means that he degrades and with time he will be replaced by to another, more competitive specialist. In my opinion, in today’s world, we need to obtain new knowledge constantly, throughout our life. This is due to the fact that currently scientific and technological progress develops rapidly.

Also, it can be said that the study of the structure of education systems is associated with the study of its social function: the transfer of accumulated knowledge, the continuity of social experience and spiritual continuity of generations, socialization of the personality, its self-development and self-actualization, the accumulation of its spiritual, intellectual and social potential. 

I would like to admit that education has a historical and cultural phenomenon of the mentality of society’s consciousness. Moreover, education provides the prerequisites for the identification and development of creative abilities of society, for serial transmission of accumulated knowledge by society, skills, and cultural heritage of all generations. It should be noted that the process of education interacts with other social processes and is one of the most important mechanisms of socialization of a person, which continues his entire life. All the problems of society, as in a mirror, are reflected in the education system. I believe that tomorrow’s education depends on the education that we have today.