What is the Aim of Education?

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Joel Swagman

April 26, 1999

Assignment 11

Education 304 C

What is the Aim of Education?

The aim of education is ultimately to contribute to society.  Under this aim, many different priorities can be placed.  For instance since a good environment contributes to society, educating care of the environment falls under this category.

However, within this broad category of society, I believe the aim of Education should be primarily to help the disadvantaged of society.  I believe the purpose of education ideally would be to put everyone on equal footing.  Those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds would receive the same level of education as everyone else, and ideally be able to compete on the same level as those who grew up in privileged circumstances.  Of course, this ideal is far from reality, with suburban schools receiving much more funding and generally having a higher quality of education than inner-city schools.  However ideally, this would be the way education would function.

In this manner, education would also be able to serve the society since it would help to eliminate the underclass.  Of course, a good education is not a sure ticket out of poverty, but it will at least give the poor a chance.

If the poor are educated, they will also be able to better organize themselves, and stand up for themselves as a class.  Stopping the elite from taking advantage of the poor will then help society.

In addition, our society will be stronger if we give the poor a personal stake in it, instead of regulating them to the margins of society, giving them no cause to support it.