The Role of Education in Our Society

The Role of Education in Our Society Meritocracy is a universalistic viewpoint favoured by many and is

widely seen as the ideal way in which society should be founded on. In

addition, as the education system is arguably the most important and

influential institution in society it is then fair to assume that the

education system is solely built to ‘produce a meritocracy where

individual promise is acknowledged and developed through academic

achievement’. This belief will be examined and evaluated from the

introduction of state education to present day.

State education has been changed & reformed many times since its

introduction in 1880 when the government assumed full responsibility

over the provision of education. The belief & one of the foundations

it was built on (Meritocracy) has remained the same through its many

significant transitions. The were a number of reasons the government

set up free compulsory education; to create a more skilled workforce,

reduce street crime , to re-socialise the aimless, to ward off the

threat of a revolution, to provide a ‘human right’ and so on… However

up until the Fisher education act of 1918 (where attendance was made

compulsory) and the Butler act of 1944 it was seen that education as

an institution failed greatly to produce a meritocracy. As simply, the

working class pupils were not given an equal chance at academic

achievement & were eventually unlikely to succeed. The aim of the

tripartite system was to abolish class-based inequa...

... middle of paper ...

...estions to the role

of education and the part it plays or should play in our society. As a

result of this, the education system has endured many modifications to

‘improve’ in equality and meritocracy (if that really is its sole

intention). Important and outstanding questions must be answered to,

such as why particular class based patterns within educational

achievement seem to continue even though the many major changes & why

meritocracy has not come any closer to being a reality despite this.

All the theories seem to have their pros and cons but my evaluation is

that surely an institution as enormous as this has more functions and

perhaps there is no single outstanding role of education and really,

there are several, essential roles that it plays and until progressive

steps & changes are made the cycle will continue.