Formal education is a structured and systematic form of learning.

This is the education of a
certain standard in delivering information to learners by trained teachers. Teachers in formal
education are trained and licensed to teach children, and they are the same teachers the students
will see every day to keep their education and training consistent. Therefore, this paper will
analysis and explain five critical function the education systems performs in this country Zambia.

This learning system is found in schools, colleges, universities, and in other learning sectors in
the community hence Formal learning is important to society or in living of an individual. To
start with, formal education provides happiness and stable life to individuals. When an individual
want to lead a happy life and enjoy the good things the world has to offer, he or she certainly
need to get educated. A great job, a good social reputation is of many benefits of being an
educated person. Education is a must for a promising and secure future and a stable life. It also
creates chances of been a bilinear in the society. Blyth, C. (2008).

Rogoff, B. (2003) noted that in Zambia now days educated person has more chances of landing
up a good high paying job. Everybody wants a good life but the good life can be achieved
through been educated. Money may be called as the “root of all evil” but most people will agree
that money is important for survival in today’s world. The more educated an individual is the
better career options have in Zambian living.

Secondly, Learning is a fundamental mechanism for adapting to the environment. It involves

more or less permanent modification in behaviour that results from experience. Many societies
transmit certain attitudes, knowledge, and skills of their culture to their members through formal
systematic training institution know as education sectors where teachers and learners carry out
their associated roles. Education in many side process of socialization by which people acquire
those behaviours essential for effective participation in a society. Both the functionalist and
conflict perspectives are in agreement on the importance of education, but they differ in their
conception of the part it plays in modern life, Callanan (2011).

Functionalists look at how formal education contributes to the operation of society, and the
schooling does this in many ways. As is the case with their analysis of other social phenomena,
functionalist framework examines the institution of education from the point of view of its
contributions to societal survival. These theorists have identified the following major functions
or survival related consequences of education in the society.

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Brown (1989) explained that Cultural Preservation and Storage, retrieval and Dissemination is
one function of education. In pre-modern societies and those in early phase of modernization,
education serves two major survival functions. The preservation and storage of cultural elements,
and retrieval and dissemination of those elements. The teaching that is carried out in these
societies by family and kinship groups such as religious groups as well is directed to keeping
alive in people’s minds important ideas, beliefs and other pieces of information.

Sennett, R. (2012) in today’s society the knowledge and skills required by contemporary living
cannot be satisfied in more or less automatic “natural” way. Instead, a specialized educational
agency is needed to transmit to the young ways of thinking, feeling and acting required by
rapidly changing urban and technologically based societies.

Furthermore, formal education promotes Socialization and Social Placement. As societies move
through the modernization process, education acquires additional functions. Their importance
increases with increasing levels of development and its accompanying social, economic and
political changes. For example-as marriage, family structures and the family’s social roles are
redefined, formal educational structures become more heavily involved in the socialization
process. M., Cervantes (2011).

Additionally, Schools become primary mechanism for inculcating in young members of society,
a general knowledge and acceptance of the established socio-cultural system. For the immigrants
in new societies formal education serves as a major avenue for the assimilation of these new
comers into the system, in return fostering social integration and national unity. Formal
education also imparts to students more specific knowledge and skills required by changing
economic system which is beyond the ability of the family to teach its members. On the basis of
achievement principles, formal educational attainment becomes an important mechanism for
social placement.

According to Loomis, M. (2011) It is also the duty and function of formal education to Cultural
Expansion and Innovation. Schools create and transmit culture, this is done especially at centres
of higher education, scholars conduct research that leads to discovery and changes in our social
life. For example, medical research at medical institutions has helped increase life expectancy,
just as research by sociologists and psychologists helps us take advantage of our longevity.

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However, Dewey, J. (1933), Social Transformation and reform in both modernizing and
modernized societies, whether by intent or by accident, formal education can bring about social
revisions and reforms. It provides its clients, students a more comprehensive, sophisticated view
of the present, a vision of alternative possible future, and a detailed knowledge of how social
processes work. In human history revolutions and reforms were the products of educational
institutions. In modern democratic societies, higher levels of formal education are associated
with higher levels of involvement in the political system.

Furthermore, formal education does Social Integration, according to functionalists Duguid, P.

(1989) explained that the education system functions to install the dominant values of a society
and shape a common national mind. Within our country, students learn what it means to be a
Pakistani. Society members become literate in national language, gain a common heritage, and
acquire mainstream standards and rules. Youngsters from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds
are immersed within the same culture and prepared for responsible citizenship. Likewise, the
schools are geared to integrate the poor and disadvantaged within the fabric of dominant
mainstream institutions.

According to sociologist Joshua (2020), Educational institutions commonly perform the function
of screening and selecting individuals for different types of jobs. By conferring degrees,
diplomas, and credentials for many technical, managerial and professional positions, it
determines a person to access to scarce positions and offices of power, privilege and status. For
many, schools are alike “mobility escalators” allowing gifted people to ascend the social ladder.

Schools today perform a good many latent functions that may not be recognized or intended.
Like they provide custodial or babysitting service. Schools are the settings in which students
develop a variety of interpersonal skills, needed for entering into friendship, participating in
community affairs, and relating to others in workplace. Besides, the age segregation of the
students in school environment encourages the formation of youth subcultures. Finally, formal
compulsory education keeps children and adolescents out of the labour market and so out of
competition with adults for jobs.

Conflict theorists explains the educational institution reproduces and legitimizes the current
social order. By doing so, it serves some people at the expense of others. Conflict perspective
offers an altogether different picture of formal education in modern societies. According to this,

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the institution of education exists to further interests of those who control the social structure, not
the best interest of the population at large.

Conflict theorists in the Marxist tradition argue that Formal education involves a “hidden
curriculum” that infuses the teachings of basic information and skills with values, norms and
myths supportive of capitalism and capitalists. Thus formal education acts as a powerful tool in
the establishment and maintenance of a “false consciousness” among the members of the
working and middle classes. From this point of view, formal education has a function, to
preserve an exploitative status quo by shaping the minds of the exploited.

According to Functionalists view education as one of the more important social institutions in a
society. They contend that education contributes two kinds of functions manifest, which are the
intended and visible functions of education and latent or secondary functions, which are the
hidden and unintended functions. The behaviour constituting the hidden curriculum are modelled
by teachers and reinforced by them in dealing with students. The characteristics preferred by
teachers are those that embody middle-class values and morality responsibility, reliability, self-
control, efficiency, thoroughness and emotional stability. These behaviours resemble those of
workplace and marketplace, where the emphasis is on economically ambitious, materialistic,
competitive and conforming behaviour.

Education also provides one of the major methods used by people for upward social mobility.
This function is referred to as social placement. College and graduate schools are viewed as
vehicles for moving students closer to the careers that will give them the financial freedom and
security they seek. As a result, college students are often more motivated to study areas that they
believe will be advantageous on the social ladder. A student might value business courses over a
class in Victorian poetry because she sees business class as a stronger vehicle for financial
success.

In conclusion, formal education has greater impact to the society by providing capital,
transmissions of culture, preserving of society materials, social placement, screening and
selecting individuals for different types of jobs. Hence, education is viewed as one of the most
important social institutions in a society.

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 REFERENCES

Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning.
18(1), 32.

Blyth, C. (2008). The Art of Conversation. London: John Murray.

Callanan, M., Cervantes, C., & Loomis, M. (2011). Informal learning.2, 646. doi:10.1002

Dewey, J. (1933). How We Think. New York: D. C. Heath.

Kahane, R. (1997). The Origins of Postmodern Youth: Informal Youth Movements in a

Comparative Perspective. Berlin: De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110817188.

Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. NY: Oxford University Press.

Sennett, R. (2012) Together. The rituals, pleasures and politics of cooperation. London: Allen
Lane.

Zeldin (1999). Conversation: How Talk Can Change Your Life. London: Harvill Press.

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