Goal of Education - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages No parent would against his or her children’s education. There is no child who does not hate his school and yet would not want to be deprived of one either. So the question here is why is education so desirable?
When asked in a survey, most people said that education, for them, is a way to make money. Parents who struggle hard for their kids’ education do so in hope of a financially brighter future and an upward mobility. Children who spend all their childhood and adolescence period in studying do so, in order to attain a social standing, where they can enjoy better standard of life. Thus, education is merely a way to become rich and make money (Eames, 1977).
As simple as the statement sounds, there are a few loopholes in the argument. First, if education is the best possible way to earn money as proven by its popularity, then why do facts show that the richest people on the planet are either illiterate or high school dropouts? Bill Gates, who dropped out of high school, remained the “richest man of the world for ten consecutive years” (Dewey, 1998). Secondly, history shows that the system of education was not invented to help people make more money (Dewey, 1998). The idea of education leading to upward financial mobility emerged at the onset of capitalism when all processes and social phenomenon were commodified in order for powerful to outdo the powerless, which is principally the Marxist perspective on capitalism.
One now asks, if it is possible to become as rich as anyone can without going to school and the process does not even accredit its alleged purpose, then why bother. What is the ultimate edge that an educated man has over the uneducated one? The answer lies in the quote of Dr. Martin Luther King, "The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education" (Warren, 2001, 27).
Education, in its true essence is ...Download file to see next pagesRead More