Lebanese University – English Department

College Writing
Professor: Ms. Asdghig Karajayerlian – Student: Marie-Rose Zeenny

Discuss the reasons why you think education is important.

Today, education is viewed as a vital key to success in life, and knowledge has
become every individual’s aim or concern. Each one of us is born in a different medium
and of different social and cultural norms; however, most of us approve of education’s
positive effects on society. Therefore, ‘Why do we need education?’ and ‘why do we think
education is important?’ is the issue to tackle. To get a better grip of this complex theme
we have to distinguish three different types of education, there is the formal education, like
school, the lifetime education, learning through difficult situations and the education by our
parents. To lead a successful country we have to keep it on a standard level of education to
be able to impart the cultural heritage to the younger generations. There is again a division
to be made between the inherited education or knowledge, and the education taught at
school.

With a good education of the younger generation, the government takes care of the
progress in the development of the country. But a good education is not just useful for the
progress of the country; the aspiration for advancement lies in the nature of every human
creature. People wake up every morning with the goal to make new experiences, which
enriches their standard of life. Another factor in today’s democratic society is the people’s
striving for the latest information. People in our days do actually have the will to know
what is going on in the world around them, they want to know what the government needs
all the tax money for, they want to understand what a new law is supposed to mean and all
this would be impossible without a good formal education.

This is just the approach of an unrestricted person in a democratic country, but we

must view it with the eyes of the leader of a dictatorship, like Napoleon in Animal Farm.
Under the regime of Napoleon Squealer would not have had a chance of convincing his
comrades, if these comrades had experienced a good education? All the animals would
have revolted against the pigs, but they were astonished by the pigs’ intelligence and their
ability to read and write. Due to their lack of education they did not question the pigs, when
they were forced to work on Sundays. In a democracy where the majority of the people
decide what happens in politics, a good formal education is quite important. The state has
to provide a chance for a good education to achieve the best results in the organization of
the community.

More precisely, the perceived goal of education to make the individual and the
society 'better' in some qualitative sense seems to missing in its current form. In our rush to
get everybody educated, we do not consider it important to ask ourselves why we need
education. An idealist notion about the necessity of education has been taken for granted. If
fact this notion has been so strongly developed that we are taught to overlook the
shortcomings in the implementation of this activity. Both independent groups, who have
chosen to work in the field of education, and expert committees have only suggested ways
of improving the effectiveness of present education system without addressing themselves
to the more basic issues of the purpose of the entire activity. Such people often choose to
ignore the disturbing trends, mentioned above, and associated with the education system.
 Most of the people will refuse to link the malaise in the system to the basic nature
of the system itself, considering it to be a disorder which could be taken care of by
implementing proper machinery. Such assumptions need to be questioned. Some experts
tend to analyze the present education system, which will raise questions at such basic
levels. When so much resources and the prime time of our children and youth are being
given over to the education system, we as a society need to find out the achievement of this
system in real terms. However, in this evaluation one must be prepared to dispense with the
assumption that the modern education system, or some close variant of it, is absolutely
indispensable, for on close examination this kind of education system itself appears to be at
fault.

Let us first take a look at why people perceive education to be a desirable thing.
The most common answer was that education makes people progressive in some sense and
is necessary for the advancement of a civilized society. Next, people thought that it imparts
knowledge. Lastly, very few people admitted, and that too quite hesitatingly, that it
provides employment opportunities. It is interesting that educated people in formal
conversation find it improper to voice the most popularly held view among the people that
education opens up more job opportunities. It is probably a sign of their being 'civilized',
which is quoted as the most important reason for getting educated. We will take up the
issues of what people mean when they say that education makes one civilized or imparts
knowledge, later.

First we will look at the notion of education opening up job opportunities. It turns
out that when parents send their children to school they are essentially seeking a 'secure
future' for them, which basically means that their children upon getting educated would
become eligible for salaried jobs. Even if they do not realize it, the societal norm, which
compels them to have their children go to school, is guided by the same motivation. In fact,
this pressure is so great that no parent can even think of doing otherwise. Considering that
modern education system incurs some expenditure on the part of parents, it can easily be
identified as a middle and upward class activity. Since the nature of such jobs is essentially
of clerical type, there is almost no scope to exercise an individual's creativity. Most people,
even those possessing highest of academic qualifications, cannot derive satisfaction out of
their jobs. To compensate for the unproductive nature of jobs they have to be paid higher
wages than can be earned otherwise. This creates an economic gap between the salaried
class and the class of people who depend on their hard labor and often engaged in
production activities, which sustain the economy. It is primarily this high salary level
accompanied by the associated proximity to ruling classes, which becomes the motivating
factor for any parents taking a decision to get their children educated. Since the education
system is also designed to produce merely a 'clerical' class, upon the completion of their
education programs the youth seek fixed salary and low risk secure jobs.

So long as the primary function of our education system continues to be serving the
interests of the ruling class, no change can be expected to be brought about by it.
Fortunately we are forced to re-examine our education system because, firstly, it is failing
to provide jobs to everybody, and, secondly, to the people it has provided jobs, it is failing
to provide satisfaction. In any case, the myth that education opens up more job
opportunities needs to be dispensed with.

One has to develop the concept of knowledge as a complete understanding of

oneself and one's environment in relation to it, and furthermore, evolving a program of
living at the four stages of the self, the family, the society and nature, so that there is
complete harmony among all the stages. The task of education is described as making
people familiar with this entire concept. Under such a system the objective of education is
determined as the realization of a just human order. This human centered thought identifies
the two types of needs of human beings – material and human values – and offers a
program for the satisfaction of both. Education helps the human beings understanding these
processes better and hence is more meaningful for life.

The education system is trying to serve fruitful purposes in the society by keeping a
handful of people in jobs. A larger objective of creating a healthy society is where all the
needs of all human beings can be satisfied easily. Every country has a different education
system. However, differences include teaching styles, credit system, and even student life.
Lebanon is a developing country, so we need many talented people to build the country.
That is why we need to have a good education system because it is an important factor for
future economic development. Lebanon’s wealth is measured by his educated population
and not by his gold nor by his oil. Lebanon’s education system is improving to get a higher
education system like the developed countries and even better. Therefore, the process of
education is considered so important in our society that no parents, who can afford it, can
imagine having their children go uneducated. It has become such an integral part of our
lives that for most people, completing the process of education appears to be a matter of
habit. Others, who have so far remained outside this process, are now being covered by the
literacy programmes of the government and various non-governmental organizations.