Empowering People through Education - Essay Example

Universal education has been on the global agenda since the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed free and compulsory education to be a basic human right. The 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed by all but two of the world's governments, reaffirmed this right as a legally binding obligation. Since then, there have been many high-level international commitments to education for all (Bloom & Cohen, 2002). Indeed, education is a tool for human beings to push them to advance their goals in life.

This is the reason why education was inculcated in the Declaration of Human Rights. This is also why, of all American institutions, the educational system has perhaps the greatest impact on the lives of ordinary people. Children gain knowledge about a standard range of subjects from English and history to mathematics and science. They also learn social skills and are exposed to different people and ideas. Educational achievement is the single largest influence on an individual's future earning power.

More than anything else, in fact, it is education that shapes a person's future. Professor Stephen Heyneman of Vanderbilt University, in his article "Are We Our Brothers' Keeper", pointed out that that economic development depends on educational progress. The evidence supporting this claim emerged from multiple sources and common intuitive judgment: nations with an educated population are economically adaptable, healthy, and innovative. But the challenges to providing education in low-income countries are daunting.

Generally, they can be divided into three categories: schooling's access, quality, and purpose. This is why world leaders are thinking how greater educational opportunity can be provided to low-income countries, how the quality of that opportunity can be improved, and how the international community should guide these schools to reduce extremist nationalist and religious curricula (The World and I, 2003, p. 18). So if "ignorance is bliss", why do we still pursue to educate ourselves and our children It may be true, but no individual wants to become ignorant.

If a person is not educated, he or she is susceptible to being taken advantage of. Holmes (1981) offered a more viable answer to this question by expounding the aims of education. According to Holmes (1981), these aims are often expressed in general terms in order to induce widespread public appeal. Aims such as the holistic development of children and the acquisition of skills and knowledge deemed desirable for societal well-being are often palatable to a variety of stakeholders, including governments, businesses, parents, educators, and students (Holmes, 1981).

Thus, the intentions of education, as Holmes has argued, are often described in terms of their intrinsic value (knowledge for knowledge's sake), their social value (process of initiation into acceptable social standards), and their intended outcomes (all-around individual development). The aims of education, therefore, represent a society's idealized hopes and visions for its citizens:In so far as aims are statements of what "ought to be the case" and represent man's hopes and aspirations not only for himself but for future generations, they are part of our socially constructed world and can be accepted or rejected according to taste. (p. 114)Thus, the aims of educa