Understanding

Culture Society and

Politics
LESSON
FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATION
The basic manifest function of education is to transmit knowledge from one
generation to another generation. The school teaches to the students the basic
information and skills like reading, writing, and speaking. Other functions are to
produce productive citizens and to develop self-actualization.

As a student’s progress in education, he/she becomes trained in various

technical skills or knowledgeable in different aspects. As British sociologist Herbert
Spencer explains, functions are important to be performed as they make the societal
whole. If each function is working well, society attains progress.

1. Productive Citizenry
Educational systems enable citizens to be a productive member of the society,
as they are equipped with knowledge and skills that could contribute to the
development of their society’s systems and institutions.

This highlights the importance of formal and non-formal education in the

development of oneself and the society. For instance, the Philippines recently adapted
the K-12 curriculum, which provides sufficient time for students to learn and
developed knowledge and skills that are demanded by the global community.

Being a productive citizen requires critical thinking. One must have the ability to
understand his or her duties and be able to respond to them by making decisions.
Through education, individuals are introduced to concepts concerning democracy,
power, inequality and the like. This promotes greater awareness in his or her society.
It encourages vigilance and participation. Educational attainment does not only
contribute to the individual’s success but also to the betterment of his environment.

2. Self-actualization
Education develops one’s sense of self. As a huge part of the discovery process
of oneself, education encourages having the vision to become self-actualized.
Moreover, it enables one to see your strengths and maintain them. It enables one to
determine weaknesses and adjust to them. This helps one reach full potential and
establish oneself as a whole.

According to Abraham Maslow, self-actualization is the highest form of human

need. It was defined as “to become more and more what one is, to become everything
that one is capable of becoming.”
 Through education, humans are empowered to experience and learn their true
capacities that lead to self-actualization. Humans also tend to find boundless
enthusiasm in learning outside the classroom, which is basically through experience.
With this, it becomes easier for them to socialize, to identify a career path, to create
self-identity, and the like. They will tend to have the ability to analyze, evaluate, and
decide on their own.

Here are the other functions of education

1. Building character.
2. Giving training in specific skills or the basic general education literacy.
3. Prepare people for occupational roles.
4. Producing patriotic citizens through lessons illustrating the country’s glory.
5. Developing the person’s ability to think rationally and independently.
6. Preserving the culture from one generation to the next.
7. Encouraging democratic participation by teaching verbal skills.
8. Enriching life by enabling the student to expand his /her intellectual and aesthetic
horizons.
9. Improving the health of the nation’s youth by providing physical exercise and
courses in hygiene.
10. Improving personal adjustment through personal counselling and such courses as
applied psychology, sex education, family living and drug abuse.

Some of these educational functions may not be realized; nevertheless, these

are the intended functions of our educational system. Consequentially, it is crucial for
educational systems to adapt to the changing demands of the environment to
efficiently capacitate individuals.

Horace Mann a pioneer of American public schools in the 19th century,

famously called education the “great equalizer of the conditions of men.” But the
inverse is also true. Students who receive a poor education, or who drop out of school
before graduating, can end up on the wrong side of a lifelong gap in employment,
earnings, even life expectancy. The current situation in our society now as the global
pandemic COVID-19 strike the world is definitely a big challenge to our educational
system.

The Department of Education response in the basic education is through the

Learning Continuity Plan (LCP), which will be in effect School Year 2020-2021. It
includes key features on K-12 curriculum adjustments; alignment of learning
materials; various modalities of delivery; and corresponding teacher and
parent/guardian training for homeschooling. These modifications on certain policies
and practices were necessary steps in adapting to the “new normal” while still
remaining true to the framework of Sulong EduKalidad and Education Futures.

To be sure, schools being the performer of all these functions are exerting all
their level best to help realize the goals of the Philippine Educational System.

ACTIVITY 1:
Education plays an important role in the lives of every Filipinos. Being a productive
citizen requires critical thinking. One must have the ability to understand his/her
duties and be able to respond to them by making decisions. Through education,
individuals develop their capabilities to ______________________
________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________ .

ACTIVITY 2:
It is true that education builds the character of an individual and allows us to
connect the dots of the various pieces of information we gather and interpret based on
our own diaspora. Just as the face is the mirror of the heart, we will not forget that the
level of education develops the status of a nation.
In this time of pandemic, how will education continue to those Filipino family
members directly affected by this COVID 19? How will you prove then that Filipinos
are truly resilient and helpful even in these stages of quarantine? Write your views
that answers how education is truly a social equalizer?
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________.

ASSESSMENT
Direction: Identify what is being asked in the following statements. Locate the answer
inside the puzzle box and write it in the space provided.
__________ 1. The agency that managed and regulated the Philippine education system
as well as controls the creation and implementation of the curriculum.
__________2. This has been the core curriculum during the Spanish time and the
schools were used to spread Christianity.
__________3. The term used to identify the educated class and the social standing and
prestige during the Spanish colonization.
__________4. The date mandated by the Department of Education to start classes in all
public schools in the Philippines in the absence of pandemic.
__________5. When this country colonized the Philippines, education was focused on
the development of new social patterns that would prepare the nation for a self-
governing democracy.

S T V B M N Q W D E P E D P L N M F G H S W

R I Z A L L M A C A P A G A L N M N K L L V

W R T Y R E L I G I O N G B J F G H S D R G

F I R S T M O N D A Y O F J U N E C B N M J

W R T D F S B V N M I L U S T R A D O S Z K

U N I T E D S T A T E S O F A M E R I C A S

L U C A S B K P A S I G V B C N M Z X R T L

L E A R N I N G C O N T I N U I T Y P L A N