The Nature of Education

A newborn baby cannot talk, read, get along with others or tell right from wrong. All of this is learned slowly, over years, and the means by which it is learned is education. Education does not develop only one side of a person. It develops every side, which is why it is called the means of all-round development.

Education changes a person in several ways:

• It builds knowledge, skills and attitudes.
• It brings out the abilities hidden inside a person, which are called inherent abilities.
• It makes a person moral, of good character, disciplined and hardworking.
• It turns a human, born as a biological being, into a social being.
• It gives up-to-date knowledge, skills and attitudes, so that a person can adjust as society changes.

Two examples make this clearer. A girl who only ever hummed songs alone at home joins a school music programme and discovers she has a fine voice. Her inherent ability came out because of education. A farmer who always dealt only in cash learns to check market prices and make payments on a mobile phone. By learning a new skill that fits a changed society, he has kept up with his times. That, too, is the work of education.

To gain all this, a person does not receive just one kind of education. They receive education of many different kinds, and understanding those kinds is what studying the nature of education means.

Education has grown alongside human civilisation. As civilisation developed, the ways people learn and teach changed with it.

People do not learn only at school. They also learn from their family, from society, from their surroundings and from many social institutions and media. Because education comes from so many places and in so many ways, its forms are varied. In a single day a student might learn a family recipe from a grandmother in the morning, study mathematics at school in the afternoon, and find out what is happening in the country from the television news in the evening. All three are learning, but each takes a different form.

Educationists, philosophers and sociologists do not all agree about the nature of education. So its nature is worked out from something concrete: the education people give and receive from birth until death as society develops. Looking at that education from four different angles, called bases, gives four ways of dividing it:

• (a) On the basis of formality: formal, non-formal and informal education
• (b) On the basis of specialisation: general and specialised education
• (c) On the basis of the presence of a teacher: direct and indirect education
• (d) On the basis of participation: individual and collective education

The first basis is formality. It asks how rule-bound and planned the education is, in what setting it is given, and whether it follows a fixed curriculum. On this basis there are three types.

Schools and universities give formal education. While you are in class 10, what you study, which textbooks you use, how you are taught and how you are evaluated have all been decided beforehand. That is the mark of formal education. It is rule-bound, planned and organised. It has a fixed curriculum, textbooks, teaching methods and an evaluation process. A certificate is awarded when a level is completed, so it is based on the awarding of certificates. Formal education is general in nature.

Non-formal education is more flexible than formal education. Rather than giving theoretical knowledge and a certificate, it puts practical knowledge that is useful in daily life first. In Nepal, awareness programmes, skill-based programmes, literacy programmes and adult education programmes are all examples. A mother in a village who never had the chance to go to school as a child joins an evening literacy class and learns to write her name and keep the household accounts. That is non-formal education.

It is considered useful for people who could never enrol in school, who could not become literate, or who left school partway through. Compared with formal education, it costs less and is more flexible and more practical.

Informal education has no rules or limits. A person learns through their own inner ability by interacting with other people and with their surroundings. Understanding a traffic police officer's hand signals while walking along the road, learning to bargain while wandering round a market, or picking up a new word or fact while looking at social media are all informal education. It has no fixed objective, curriculum, time or place. A person simply keeps learning while doing things, and this learning goes on throughout life.

The second basis is specialisation. It asks whether education gives a general knowledge of many subjects, or a deep knowledge of one field.

General education does not give a person broad and deep knowledge of any single field. It is given equally to everyone so that their knowledge and skills develop. General-stream secondary education is an example. In class 10 you study many subjects, such as Nepali, English, mathematics, science and social studies. You build a firm base in each, but you do not become an expert in any one of them.

Education given to become a doctor, engineer, lawyer, musician or singer is specialised education. A student who wants to be a doctor spends years studying the human body, diseases and their treatment in depth. They gain expertise in one field rather than in many subjects. General education gives breadth of knowledge; specialised education gives depth.

The third basis is the presence of a teacher. What separates these two types is whether a teacher is there in person in front of the learner.

Direct education runs to a plan made in advance. Students learn the knowledge and skills the teacher gives, and they also learn by copying the teacher's behaviour, trying to shape themselves in the same way. A teacher who arrives on time every day and speaks politely to everyone teaches the class punctuality and politeness without a single lesson on either. The students pick it up because the teacher is there. Both formal and non-formal education can be examples of direct education.

In indirect education there need not be a teacher at all, and there is no plan made in advance. Learning happens freely, following the person's own needs or interests. What someone learns by watching television, reading newspapers and magazines, or reading the life story of a person is indirect education. A student who loves birds watches wildlife programmes on television and borrows bird books from the library. Nobody is teaching them, yet they learn a great deal.

The fourth basis is participation. What separates these two types is whether education is shaped for each child's needs, or given to everyone in the same way to meet the shared needs of society.

Every child is different. Some understand quickly from pictures, others by listening. One loves mathematics, another loves stories. These individual differences affect the way each child learns.

A teacher gives a slow reader short, easy stories to practise with step by step, and gives a fast reader longer, harder books. Each learns at their own level. That is individual education.

Collective education puts the needs of society ahead of each person's wishes, desires and needs. Everyone receives the same kind of education, together and equally. It stresses passing on the shared culture and values of society. For example, every student in the country learns the national anthem, respect for the national flag and the custom of respecting elders. Whatever a student's personal interest, everyone learns these, because society needs them.

The easiest way to hold the nature of education in your head is to remember the question each basis asks.

Most pieces of learning can be sorted by asking all four questions. Think of one thing you learned today and try placing it under each basis.