The Quality of Education - Essay Example

EDUCATION By 26th, October, EDUCATION Education is the imparting of knowledge skills and habits to It may be formal or informal education. Formal education occurs in a formal setting (Rosevelt 2012). Usually it occurs in an academic institution, with structured hierarchy, aims, goals, and objectives. In this essay writing, the focus is on education, for or against. Education is an asset in the 21st century, when the technological advancements have hit a high note since the discovery of optical fibers and the internet. Without education, one may feel lost in the world since many of the systems and machines require background knowledge for a successful use. Education provides guidance. In the support of education, many areas require educational input. These are as follows. College graduates earn high pay compared to a high school graduate. This gives a college graduate advantage. Education is also important in enabling one to look for an interest or occupation. A college graduate will therefore have many job opportunities and hence job satisfaction (Jeanne Nakamura 2009). Education and agriculture: agriculture is an important part of the economies of many countries worldwide (KMPG 2007). In the past, farming was a recreational activity but is now being taken very seriously and as a commercial activity. Knowledge on soil topology, soil types, PH levels are important since they determine what crop grows in what area of the country. The knowledge required includes the types of diseases that affect the plants, the type of treatment for the plants and the kind of plants to grow in a certain season. The amount of water content required the amount of fertilizer to put, how long the crop takes before harvesting time, and what nutrients to add in order to achieve the best harvest, all require expert opinion. This expert opinion is because of education in that field. When it comes to rearing of animals on a large scale, knowledge on the type of feeds, the kind of environment the animals survive in is very important. Not all animals can survive in any part of the world. Without the knowledge, one may relocate animals to a part of the world that they cannot survive. Knowledge is important also in animal husbandry. This determines the kind of breeding that should happen in animals. In disease monitoring, education comes very handy in both plants and animals. Through expert knowledge, vaccines are made to prevent diseases, and treatments are discovered to treat the animals. Once crops were harvested, and products from animals obtained, they need to be processed in order to obtain the final product. This is the called processing. It requires knowledge on how the processes occur, what stages are involved and the amount of input and output expected. Such processes include pasteurization and homogenization, ghee manufacturing, corn processing and many others. Once this are done, the final products need to be packaged into final material wrappings and distributed to the consumer. Most of the food processing industries are large scale. The process of distribution requires a framework to support it. This requires a management team that oversees the process of distribution and marketing. Marketers are highly trained graduated who have gone through the intensive process of learning the marketing skills and brands. Branding, differentiation of a product, the cost impact, and diversification of products all fall in the area of marketing. Without this marketers being trained, there would be no competition on products and manufacturers would not go beyond their potential to impress the customer. Form this it is obvious that the processes that control the market, are knowledge based and that education is very important. In the business world, education is important so that one has knowledge on market forces and their effect the commodities prices. This is important for a businessperson, companies, banks, and other stakeholders in business. In banking for example, HSBC is able to adjust their Forex prices on the knowledge that there is a high demand for foreign exchange. Companies such as KPMG, depend on market knowledge for them to carry out research on different firms. Buying and selling in import and export market require knowledge of the manufacturers, the applicability in the country and the amount of profit to be obtained in the business. Companies such as Google are knowledge based so that they are able to give their clients results that are reliable through the internet. They offer maps, satellite coverage, voice, and data services, all which are knowledge based. In communication and technology world, education is important. There has been much advancement that have occurred in recent times because of education. Phones have evolved from huge devices to very small devices with Bluetooth attachments. Computers have evolved from a super computer in times of size to a smaller gadget that has many features and does work much faster and more effective. The manual way of doing work has been replaced by softwares and programs to do the work in an efficient and much faster automated way. The internet is available to more people and is used in research, pleasure, and business. Now there exist fancy applications such as live chat, IM chat, Skype, and many others (Katrin 2012) The world is now a global village. People from one part of the world are able to communicate to the rest of the world in seconds and the message relayed. Through education, we have Facebook, twitter, 2go, my space, you tube and many others. These platforms of social media have changed the world in many ways. Dating has changed from the old fashioned way to checking each other’s profile on Facebook. Bennhold Katrin analyses the impacts of such media to the world today. According to her, the old and new generations are worlds apart because of fast change in technology. Since knowledge keeps on changing, it is important that the older generation keep up with the pace of change because of education. When one is educated, there is a sense of knowledge thirst that one develops. According to a KPMG report, communication has changed the advertising media. More companies prefer to advertise on social media to keep up with the digital readers (KMPG 2007). Companies are losing market due to the changes in technology. Everyone one can access news on the internet, and this is replacing the print version of news (“New York Times, 2012”). In the area of medicine, it is because of knowledgeable graduates that we have hospitals, nurses, and doctors to attend to patients. They undergo specialized training for years before being crowned the name doctor. Paramedics require specialized training for them to be sent to the file as rescue and on sight help in the cases of emergency. When it comes to treatment, untreatable disease 10years ago are curable due to efforts of education and research. Diseases such as cancer are now treatable through chemotherapy, nuclear radiation, and laser radiation therapy. This is the impact. When an individual is educated, one is able to network in the business world so that ideas are put together. Form this, concrete tasks are done, and much is achieved .Even in private sector, and educated individual may use ones knowledge to solve a problem in society and even create jobs. By being educated, the quality of the person improves. One tends to have a flexible, world –view outlook; independent thought that could achieve greatness. The educated leaders tend to have reasonable ideologies, based on facts, current issues, technological advancements, and many others. In contrast to these, one not needs to be educated for them to learn. Learning is an individual agenda and has nothing to do with education. Processes of manufacturing and business can be learnt without an individual being educated (Biesta 2009). Secondly, education has become a business enterprise. Universities are now teaching to make money, instead of a means to achieve the money. Candidates choose the course to pursue in terms of monetary value it brings back. They seek education that will buy the most money. So what difference does it make to be educated and to have money? Someone who spent time in informal training of business and the person who goes to school to make money all want the same thing, money (Schwartz 2011). Universities are now measuring their success in terms of the amount of money their graduates make. Many educated individuals currently do not have formal employment. Y is that. The amount of graduates from higher learning institutions is higher than the amount of jobs created. This leaves a majority of educated individuals unemployed, yet they have good qualifications. The reason why people join the university is so that they have an upper edge in the employment sector. If they are not getting employment, is there any reason for education? Moreover, the standards of teaching in the universities have reduced. Teaching is on a basis of the teachers’ ability to make money. The quality of education is compromised, and this means that the graduates in the market do not have the right qualifications and expertise to do the work required. They may have the knowledge base, but lack the applicability part of the education. This is compared to an individual who did not go to school but rather chose to go for an internship and got on job training and experience. Who is at a better position? Education is a choice, especially when it comes to the course to pursue. Humanities are no longer an important area of teaching at the university. Nations prefer to pursue short-term profit by the cultivation of the useful and highly applied skills suited to profit making (Nussbaum 2010). The whole idea of education being a self-fulfilling, imaginative process of achieving the dreams of an individual has been replaced with selfish money making scheme. Many ways of making money do not require education. Education has therefore lost meaning and in the book by Nussbaum, she calls it a silent Crisis. No one seems concerned with the way in which education is losing its intended purpose. Both sides of the propositions are convincing. This is because, education as a tool for use, has brought about many changes in life, from technology to personal fulfillment. This does not mean that the quality of education has not been compromised. The economy of the countries may be performing well; this does not mean it is directly proportional to the number of graduates every year. It simply means other factors such as export and import trade improve the quality of the economy. It could as well mean that all people are paying tax as they should and that foreign exchange earned the country a lot of income. In conclusion, education has many application areas, from agriculture, to leadership, business, to technology and many others. This however does not mean that all is well. Education needs to be redefined, to capture its original purpose. This purpose is to provide all round knowledge based-skills to an individual for current and future use. Education is to be used as a means to an end but not and end on its own. Lastly, a lasting solution needs to be found to guarantee the quality of education, and the employment opportunities for graduates. References Biesta, Gert. GOOD EDUCATION: WHAT IS AND WHY WE NEED IT. The Stirling Institute of Education, March 4, 2009. Jeanne Nakamura, David J. Shernoff & Charles Hooker. Good Mentoring: Fostering Excellent Practise in higher Education. Illinois: John Wiley & Sons, 2009. Katrin, Bennhold. Generation FB. Paris, 2012. KMPG. Impact of Digitization- a generation apart. Print, Swiss: KPMG international, 2007. Nussbaum, Martha C. Not for profit. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010. Rosevelt, Elanor. Good Citizenship: The purpose of Education. October 26, 2012. http://newdeal.feri.org/er/er19.htm (accessed October 26, 2012). Schwartz, Steven. Soul food in the age of Money. Australia, May 4, 2011. times", "The New York. The New York times. October 23, 2012. http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/06/07movies/page-one-inside-the-new-york-times-review.html?_r=0 (accessed October 26, 2012). . Read More