The purpose of education and its importance

¶ … education and why?

From the early ages, people were beginning to learn various things which they later passed on to others, and, thus, they gave birth to education. It is not only people that have the instinct to learn, as the feature it is also present in animals, with all beings being inclined to imitate each other more or less. In the present, the main purpose of education is to teach all students and to give everyone the chance to succeed in life.

For one to properly integrate in today's society and to achieve greatness in it, a great deal of knowledge is required. During the process of education an individual learns how to behave correctly, and, he or she acquires technical abilities. In the U.S., most people regard education as having the purpose of creating a competitive workforce that would eventually bring profit to the country. Generally, Americans want good education in order for their children to be properly prepared to face the future and adulthood. Also, they relate to education as to a method of making the world a better place by presenting everybody with the difference between good and bad.

During the process of education, pupils and their teachers have equal responsibilities in getting better results and in making the performance enjoyable. Because of education, people gradually develop a desire to learn and to better their intelligence. Education helps people to use their minds properly by constantly searching for information that they are in need of. The individuals that receive education are also inclined to encourage their children to follow educational institutes.

One can claim that the true purpose of education is to create good citizens that want the well-being of the whole planet. Indeed, educational institutions intend to have the people that are attending them achieve excellence through proper learning. Governments also want people to receive the best education in order for them to bring benefits to mankind.

There is virtually no limit when concerning education, with people being able to continuously study throughout their life without even covering 1% of the existing knowledge in the world.

According to Dr. Norman D. Livergood, the American education system is not as excellent as most people tend to believe. It appears that several tens of millions of Americans have received poor education and can barely perform some simple tasks, while approximately eleven million are illiterate in English. (Livergood) There are various factors ranging from inexperienced leadership to improper promotion of education that have lead to the large number of uneducated people in the U.S.

People like William Galston believe that the level of education that people receive mostly depends on their backgrounds. Numerous people have the advantage of attending higher educational institutes because their social statute and the fact that they are wealthy allow them to do so. In contrast, the individuals from lower classes rarely have the opportunity to attend high education. (Galston) All in all, it is clear that your social statute is a strong factor of influence when concerning the level of education that you receive.

In some isolate cases, people can actually improve the efficiency of their educational systems. It is absolutely necessary for an educational institute to have virtuous directors in order for its students to become well educated. An academic curriculum would surely be benefic for the young minds waiting to be taught. A solution for the U.S. educational system to be efficient regardless of people's backgrounds would be for the government to attempt to pay equal attention to all people. Also, the government needs to create better educational programs for all students to enjoy the same level of education.

One of the biggest mistakes made by a normal institution is to believe that in order for a certain problem to be solved, one would need to put more money into various programs. Educational officials are inclined to blame either teachers or students for the fact that the numbers prove the U.S. educational system of being ineffective.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has been introduced by the government with the purpose of providing every child with appropriate education in spite of the social statute of the respective child. While the program appeared to be the perfect solution for the burden that the U.S. educational system had had until the time, it did not proved its competence over the years. A large culpability for the setbacks experienced by the program is given to fact that teacher shortages have lead to inexperienced personnel being used for tasks that only qualified people should perform. "The CEC (Allbritten et al., 2004) reported a nationwide shortage of 40,000 qualified special education teachers." (Richard L. Simpson, Paul G. Lacava, Patricia Sampson Graner, 2004) As a result of the teacher shortages that the U.S. is experiencing, unqualified teachers can get easily jobs which require special training without being familiar with the domain in which they will be working.