the essence of education

The term and the concept Education
The term education originates from a Latin word 'Educatio' derived from the verb 'educare' which used to mean the whole activity of or 'general process of growing up, rearing or bringing up' in the antiquity. It was basically used to refer to rearing of animals and plants and bringing up of children. Although in this sense it meant a physical process, it never excluded mental care of children. Even when the word 'education' was adopted into English up to 19th century, it could still be used as in 'the education of silkworm, of bees.' in the last two centuries, the word was restricted to children.
It is worth noting that 'education' and 'instruction' were used in different ways by the ancient Romans, the former was used to refer to the whole process of bringing up children, while the latter to the more specific process of formal, systematic learning in schools. In the mean time, this distinction was extended into the English Language but at the moment, the meaning conferred by the term education is derived from 'original instruction' and is used to refer to primary or secondary but in other sense to mean schooling. Casually, we speak of education as schooling.
Education as a concept is rather complex to be limited to one or few characteristics, it has a host of meanings in embracing or pointing at various ideas like growing up, instruction, training, schooling e.t.c. Therefore, education being a wide concept is not precise in meaning, moreover, it is a relational concept that cannot be understood in isolation from situations, attitudes and goals, its practices and aims. This is why it is a dynamic concept in meaning and practice.

According to the International encyclopedia of social sciences, education is primarily understood as instruction. It is written there that 'instruction is a basic activity of humankind. Men inform one another conveying beliefs, knowledge and skill, as they raise a family, earn a living, govern a polity, minister a church, nurse the ill, encounter friends.....” Therefore, education can be viewed as ‘including all communicating of knowledge and shaping of values, it is viewed similar to socialization.’


The normative dimension of education.

Education being a multi-dimensional concept as earlier discussed, has distinct but inter-related dimensions which all together give us the best understanding of the concept. Socialization is what gives light to what normative dimension is. Socialization can be defined as ' a process whereby an individual learns to accept the norms, values and ways of behaviour characteristic of the society to which they belong. It can either be formal or informal. The agents of socialization are 'parents, grand parents, relatives, neighbours, elders and formal teachers.' it is not only individually done but also collectively. In other words, it is a mandate of all adult members of the society in question. Normative dimension being concerned with instilling norms, values, …....socialization does not define the core concept of education. It only points to parts of the concept but not in totality. Worth noting, however much as socialization brings out the basic areas of normative dimension of education. It is admitted that sociological definition does not give a comprehensive grasp of the dimension. It tends to go beyond what is done in socialization. The term socialization as used by sociologists and social anthropologists define education descriptively, giving what is actually done or observed as 'the process of education.' Such definitions are rather empirical, basing on careful observation and empirical investigation.
Normative definition of education however tends to define education in terms of what ought to or should happen, such a definition 'enters into the areas of values and deals.' in other words, they provide us with prescriptions not with descriptions of education. The normative dimension serves as a guideline pointing to the future, and it is emphasized by policy makers, philosophers and educationalists. Normative dimension of education refers to norms or standards to guide the educational activities, to serve as a principal guideline for educational theory and practice.

Using official government reports and documents of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania are given by Njoroge and Bennaars as examples of the goal oriented dimension of education. Suggesting ideals is a clear indication that education has a purpose to fulfill. That is why it is a very serious business and expensive indeed. It is because of its purposefulness that motivates society to shoulder all it takes in terms of mobilizing resources.
R.S Peters, an analytic philosopher understands education as an activity aiming at confering what is considered valuable to learners. Therefore, according to him, education aims at instilling values, qualities, skills, and it is these that he calls it the 'value condition' of education. He further defines this as the 'normative criterion,' since values are often explicated in norms, and from all these we arrive at a normative dimension of education.

The background information which is very important is to know the various perspectives in which education was regarded through ages past. In traditional African society, informal education was basically aiming at instilling moral values. But from Islamic perspective, Islamic traditional education was rooted in 'hadith' and Islamic law aimed at instilling religious ethics. On the other hand however, education in the colonial Africa was not centered on practical knowledge, but for adaptation and assimilation of western values and Christian ethics. Critically analyzing the above, there is a common moral concern in all traditions; they were all normative in nature. This is now changing with modernity which emphasizes pragmatism and neglects morality. This in one way or another provokes a thinker to reflect and analyze. The relationship between education and ethics and this is done in the normative dimension of education.

Education and ethics: initial orientation

As mentioned earlier, it is clear that the purpose of education should be to confer desirable or valuable qualities. Aristotle's question reflects this ''should knowledge or virtue or the useful in life be the aim of education.?”
In traditional African societies, promotion of virtue was first hand priority but not downplaying the useful in life. The two were compatible. 'the useful' was not pursued for its sake but partly as means to aiming at virtue. The traditional education systems focused on morality as the core of learning, no wonder, in the ancient Greek society, they regarded knowledge as 'virtue.'
In modern educational systems, morality is sometimes locked outside, and they focus on economic lines, especially scientific knowledge, for promoting economic gains but far from an ethical world. The problem arises when it is forgotten that economic activities cannot be isolated from moral or ethical values. Here we are prompted to ask ourselves, what is the purpose or end of education? And this being an ethical question, it brings us to the branch of philosophy namely, 'axiology' which basically studies ethical matters in a normative sense. However, although axiology studies values in a wider sense, our concern is specifically ethics.
Under this section, 'education and ethics: initial orientation' we try to look at the original meaning of ethics and its various applicabilities or types.
Ethics is a term originating from a Greek word 'ethos' which means 'established customs or conventions of a community or a social group.' 'ethos' has 'mores' as its equivalent in Latin. In its strict sense, ethics stood to mean the study of people's customs, but the original meaning has dissolved with time. Therefore, it is appropriate to first analyze the common usage. In the day to day meaning of the term ethics, it refers to a set of standards by which a group of people decide to abide by in order to regulate its behaviours. Deducing from this understanding of the term, different codes of behaviours depend on different groups in question. Here we speak of medical, business or professional ethics in general. In more general terms, we talk of Christian ethics, national or social ethics. First, to members of these given groups , a behaviour will be considered ethical if it conforms to the stipulated behaviour, if it doesn't then it is immoral or unethical.
Secondly, each code of conduct is rooted in some moral principle which in turn reflects certain moral values. All moral values are believed to have originated from two sources that is; from the divine law as revealed in the Bible or Quran or from human philosophical reflections (moral philosophy.)

In the strict sense or in the academic usage of the term ethics, we still divide it into three namely; the descriptive ethics, normative ethics and meta ethics.
(a) Descriptive ethics.
This implies 'the scientific or empirical investigation of moral conduct in a given society or community.' under this, social anthropologists and sociologists endevour to describe visible human behaviours, but in relation to the established or society's accepted norms. Ones behaviour is regarded as good/normal if it tallies with the norms of the society, and behaviour is bad if it doesn't. Kollberg gives various stages of moral development, in fact, there are three namely;
1. pre-conventional levels. These occur when a child acts either to avoid punishment or to be rewarded, without or with less concern for values or norms.
2. At a conventional level, a child's behaviour is basically determined by social approval, a child conforms to the expectations of the society.
3. And in the post conventional stage , young people begin becoming autonomous in matters of morality, by reflecting on general moral principles or the values they present.

(b) Normative ethics.
This doesn't describe but instead prescribes or recommends, but in similar way as the above, it involves the study of moral conduct, but in a divergent sense. Here thinkers study moral or ethical principles, reflect and analyze them before they are recommended. They ask questions like; what makes something good or bad? Moral or immoral?

c) Meta- ethics.
Is a new form of moral study, being derived from the analytic philosophy, it studies the meaning of ethical terms. 'meta-ethics is a form of linguistic analysis: the language used in ethics is critically analyzed in order to clarify meanings of terms and statements.' this serves both descriptive and normative ethics and it is between them, but in a critical sense.

2. Moral standards: A Philosophical critique.
Education refers to a goal, which is achieved through setting of specific standards. These standards are beneficial for equipping the learners with some distinctive skills for coping with challenges of life. To a large extent, education helps in forming and shaping the moral life of a learner. It enables learners to develop a sense of disposition to do good.
Influence of education on human life.
Education has both direct and indirect influence on learners. It acts as an instrument for leading the learners towards the achievement of the “good life.” Hence, it is understandable that education is part of morality. But before we proceed, let us define the moral standards, their sources and how they contribute to education.
Moral standards
Moral standards refer to norms, rules or principles that are designed to govern human conducts. They act as the correct measure for evaluating human behaviours either as right or wrong.
Sources of moral standards
There are many sources of moral standards. They include, divine command, cultural dictates among others.
a. Divine Command is one of the sources of morality. There is a belief that this source came from Supreme Creator as it is found the in the
Bible, Quran and other divine books. These books; Bible, Quran, etc, contain Commandments which express how we should relate with God and our fellow human beings. Moral principles such as you should not kill, steal or committing adultery helps us be morally upright. Although they are generally good, the non-believers are excludes from this source.
b. Human society
We get our morality from the social institutions such as the family, culture and the governments. Members of these institutions establish moral principles for governing human conducts in order to live harmoniously with others. All members of these institutions are required to conform to the norms that are formed by these institutions.
c. Human reason as source of morality.
Human reason is a source of morality. Here norms for governing human conducts come from a personal independent reflection. A person therefore becomes the lawmaker for acting according to his or her own conviction. For example a hungry man decides to steal in order to satisfy his hunger.
Philosophical Approach to the source of morality
There are philosophical theories that explain the sources of human morality. This category has two set of theories for moral obligation.
They are teleological theories and deontological theories.
1. Teleological theories.
These are theories that judge moral decisions as good or bad on the basis of the desired consequences. These consequences are closely connected to the set goals of an individual. According to these theories, any act which is considered good directly depends on the major aim which exclude non moral values. Hence, any act which is morally upright is the ultimate good. This ultimate good benefits people according to ethical egoism and utilitarianism theories.
a).Ethical egoism
This theory state that a person “must always do what he wills to promote his or her greatest good.” Here, a person is the sole judge of what is good for him or her. Proponents of this theory associates “the good with pleasure and knowledge”
b).Utilitarianism
It is an ethical theory which maintains that the “an act is right if it useful to bring about good or good end.” This good is expected to advance the happiness of each person in the society. This theory includes act utilitarianism and the rule utilitarianism
Act utilitarianism. According to act utilitarianism, each person is expected to act in a manner that brings the best good than bad for each individual who is affect by the act.
Proponents of this theory do object the idea of establishing rules for governing human actions because of the variation of circumstances. The limitation of this theory is that it difficult to determine what is good for every one because people have divergent interest.
Rule Utilitarianism. It is a theory which states that each person “should always establish and follow the” promulgated rules and act in a manner that “brings the greatest good for all concerned.” Establishing these rules involves the use of our experience and reason capacity that enables us to act in way that brings the greatest good for everyone.

2. Deontological Theories
Deontological theories identify the good with the duty. These theories stress on the existence of rules that are used as the correct scale for judging human conducts as good or bad. I.e the golden mean.
a).Act – Deontological Theory
According to this theory, a person makes the moral judgments according to a particular situation and case. For example, one, threatened by thugs, may fight back even to a point of killing. He does this in a disparate attempt to save his/her life.
b. Theories of moral values
These theories are concerned with the moral decisions according to a person’s motivations. Basically our morality in this class of theory stresses on the effective use of the virtue. Virtues help us to know the good and to do the good in the right way.

3. EDUCATION AND ETHICS: - AN APPRAISAL.
At this juncture we are going to make a rigorous evaluation of what education is from a stand point of ethics. Put differently, the relationship between education and morality. Since education in its
fundamental meaning deals with what a person should be and not what he should do. Then, it is worth to deal with what can lead us to this point. As we have seen from the onset of this work, education is an activity which aims at developing desirable qualities in people. This is quite axiomatic that every society needs members with good qualities. This end can only be successfully achieved by integrating ethics in teaching.
Since education is a purposeful activity, educators should try to make a clear direction of education in order to reach their goals. Throughout history, it has been the mission of education to cultivate virtue. Thus in a way, education and ethics are inseparable. Of course, what is considered good and virtuous in one society may profoundly differ from another society. This is the work of all education stakeholders to adjust according to the needs of the society. Denying morality in education is tantamount to denying education in itself, this is because morality is the basis of education.

Therefore, the major aim of education is to instill values, skills, attitudes and behaviours in learners, to make them fit in their societies and more importantly, to enable them face the challenges of life in their environment. Moreover, living in a society involves interacting with people from different backgrounds and with different temperaments. The ethical part of education therefore will enable learners to adapt and make necessary adjustments. Education that is built on the principles of morality clearly helps people to solve their daily problems and get along with people amicably and respectfully.

4. New direction...... “Moral Education”
Normative education was in the past pre-determined by the norms and customs. E.g. in the already established region and even African societies. In such a case the norms and the standards could not be questioned but rather unconditionally accepted. This was done through the initiation into the established norms and values of the societies through baptism circumcision etc. However, this kind of education was flawed because the older generation tried to impose their norms and teaching on the younger ones. Being in the authoritarian manner it should easily be called ‘norm training’ rather than ‘moral education’ because the people were condition to follow. And as Plato said, “knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.” Therefore, this kind of education is not so useful today. Free dictionary defines 'moral' as something “Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong.” or “Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong.”
In the modern world however, with a great diversity of norms and standards derived from different societies, where man is not sure of what is wrong or right , norms and standards are questioned by the younger generation and as such cannot be imposed. In the modern world, education is taking a pragmatic dimension , where what works seem more appropriate than the ideal. Education is more concerned with the objective facts and as such, education seem to take place in amoral vacuum, where there is no sense of right or wrong. With this in mind, education is seen as a mean/tool to an end rather than an end in itself, only judged as useful or useless according to its practicality rather than its moral sense
Therefore, in such an atmosphere, education concentrates at producing market based people, those with economic values and productivity, rather than molding morally upright individuals that can strengthen the society's ties and enhance the common good of all, where all are equal and humanity more important than an individual. This can explain why egoism is rising, why technology is against its master, why man seems to be against himself, and indeed why a new beginning is necessary.
With the above in mind, a philosopher's intervention is inevitable, who ought to shift the attention to moral education, where man comes to terms with life in an out rightly humanistic way. Thus, rather than moral training, emphasized in the past, moral education aimed at developing valuable qualities in learners, the inner conscience, is necessary.
First, because man need to discover his identity as a human being, as one with inbuilt conscience. Here, man ought to be empowered with knowledge and understanding which is necessary for him to justify human morality in difficult times. I.e., not only defining what is good or bad, but also developing the inner conscience to perceive and achieve such ethics in difficult situations, and through this, understanding the fundamental right of human being to existence.
Secondly, because to-day's man wants autonomous ethics, where ethical standards originate directly from him, serious reflection on the meaning and significance of such moral principle is necessary; where man has to deeply and thoughtfully search for answers about this autonomous principle, that is to say, develop a moral conscience which enables him to make sound decision, and follow the right way even at a sacrifice of his own personal interest, or interest of his country or ethnic group (the golden rule in practice). As Spinoza says, “that the flourishing of individuals depends on their personal resources, namely, their conatus(tendency simulating a human effort), power, vitality or capacity to act from their own inner natures.” This is only enabled by moral education rather than moral training.
Thirdly, to avoid the gap between the individual and the society in which he lives, where man is either too great because of egoism or the society too important because of reverence, there ought to be a dialogue between the two, for one influences the other. This is expressed through the dialogical dimension of education, which is catered for in moral education, which not only recognizes and upholds the dignity of an individual together their intrinsic worth and capacity but also the necessity and vitality of the society in which he lives. On the other hand, moral training being authoritative, tends to be non dialogical, and in the process, alienating modern man.
Therefore, education normatively speaking, is moral education, and in this case, we are keen on the content of moral education rather than its approach. Moral education teaches modern man to appreciate the need for universal norms of morality, service to humanity, providing man with the much needed moral sense and social ethics that is, both meaningful and relevant. Ethics that not only reminds him that he has a dignity and intrinsic worth, but that also he should concern himself with human centered values, values aimed at attaining the golden rule.