Forum 1

Most of the people will think that the main difference of formal education and informal
education is that the formal education is all about school. But, the definition of formal education
has change over time. Now, formal education can also take place outside the classroom as long
as the children are being taught alongside a group of their peers about the basics of education,
reading, writing and arithmetic, then they are in a formal education setting. When children leave
the classroom, they are basically entering informal education. The world around them,
everything they saw and heard without the “teaching” process help to shape their perspective
on important issues such as how to behave outside the classroom or in the society. Informal
learning is more to experience-based learning.

We can also differentiate the formal education and informal education from the perspective of
education provider. The formal education often provided by trained teacher, the teacher need
to help the children to meet the learning standard based on the specific curriculum in the
classroom daily. The teachers are also trained in effective teaching strategies to assist the
children passing the grade and moving forward with peers. For informal education, the
education providers may not be trained like a teacher in school, they are more flexible as they
do not need to stick to the specific curriculum. Besides, the education provider in informal
education may not be a person, it can be “provided” by anything exist or anything happen
around the children that help them learn new things.

The activities in formal and informal education are also different, the activities planned by the
teacher in formal education can last weeks or months, depending on the age of the students
and the needs of the curriculum. With informal education, such as in after school program, the
activities are often short and completed within a few hours or by the end of the day.

Forum 2

To help in cultural transmission. school plays an important role to transmit the values, beliefs,
attitudes and society’s interest. School also transmits the culture of majority of the society.
School can transmits society’s culture to the younger generation through teacher and student
interaction, administrators, curriculum and student interaction. The cultural transmission can be
carried out effectively by specific instructional objectives and school programs. Schools can also
provide systematic ways for families to transmit the society’s values, attitudes and society
interest of the dominant. There are 5 perspectives toward the role of schooling to help in
cultural transmission.

1. Functionalist- school help in transmit culture and maintain social order.

2. Conflict theory- school help in reproduce the existing economic order.
3. Critical theory- school help in legitimize oppression and reinforce the roles of the
oppressed to help people accept the social order.
4. Interpretivist- school teach various roles through curriculum and learning activities
5. Post modern- school transmit knowledge as defined by those in power
Forum 3

Development of comparative
studies and a comparative method
in education research
might be divided into three phases,
as Bereday described it
Development of comparative
studies and a comparative method
in education research
might be divided into three phases,
as Bereday described it
Development of comparative studies and a comparative method in education research might be
divided into three phases, as Bereday described it. The first phase was called a period of
“borrowing” related to Marc Antoine Jullien de Paris, and it included collecting and cataloguing
descriptive educational data. The second period was called prediction. The third phase was
described as a period of “analysis” .

Eckstein and Noah’s (1969) approach, where the first attempts at comparison begin with
accounts of what travelers saw as they journeyed from one country or region to another,
presents a viable framework for a general survey of the topic. Their five-stage approach may be
summarized as follows: the first stage is characterized by travelers who recorded their
observations and perceptions in journals or diaries (published or not); the second stage has
travelers focusing on the learning techniques and educational systems of the lands they visited;
the third stage is characterized by a freer transit of information between countries culminating
in nations understanding each other better; the fourth stage has nations understanding their
own make up and ethos; and, finally, the fifth stage is where a more scientific, quantitative
approach is utilized in understanding and describing education.

Comparative and International Education have a long history – one that stretches back to the
ancient Greeks and continues to this day. Researchers have come a long way since the days of
Herodotus and its casual reference to foreign educational customs: educational comparativists
now have sophisticated tools and methods that allow them to have a clearer, objective and
scientific picture of different cultures and their modus operandi.

Early educational works are still valuable for research because they present a snapshot of what
Comparative and International Education were like at the time they were undertaken and
written, and because each subsequent phase in this discipline is built upon the previous stages,
using them to improve its own methods and sharpen its tools. The current (postmodern)
approaches are the culmination of many strands of study and represent a more global view of
education that allows for better-informed policy-making and the pursuit of goals such as social
justice and more equitable access to public education.