EDUCATION

EDUCATION

Education is a very vital tool that is used in the contemporary world to succeed. It is important because it is used to mitigate most of the challenges faced in life. The knowledge that is attained through education helps open doors to a lot of opportunities for better prospects in career growth.

What is the importance of education?

At its most basic level, education is important because it gives people the baseline skills to survive as adults in the world. These skills include basic literacy and numeracy, as well as the ability to communicate, complete tasks and work with others. Education is essential for nearly every type of job or career, and in many cases, education makes the difference between being able to perform a job safely and accurately and being unable to perform a job at all.

However, many people believe that education is important in life for reasons beyond basic survival skills. Eleanor Roosevelt famously said that education is essential to good citizenship and that education is important to life because it enables people to contribute to their community and their country. Others believe education is important because it helps to answer life's big questions, including questions of how to live, work and love. Still others believe that education is important because it teaches people about the world around them.

Lecre at thtue Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, CTU, in Prague

School children sitting in the shade of an orchard in

 Bamozai, near Gardez, Paktya Province, Afghanistan

A right to education has been recognized by some governments, including at the global level: Article 13 of the United Nations' 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recognizes a universal right to education. In most regions, education is compulsory up to a certain age.

Education is commonly divided formally into such stages as preschool or kindergarten, primary school, secondary school and then college, university, or apprenticeship.

Preschool

Preschools provide education from ages approximately three to seven, depending on the primary education. These are also known as nursery schools and as kindergarten, except in the US, where kindergarten is a term used for primary education.Kindergarten "provide[s] a child-centred, preschool curriculum for three- to seven-year-old children that aim[s] at unfolding the child's physical, intellectual, and moral nature with balanced emphasis on each of them.

Primary

Primary (or elementary) education consists of the first five to seven years of formal, structured ^[14] Under the Education For All programs driven by UNESCO, most countries have committed to achieving universal enrollment in primary education by 2015, and in many countries, it is compulsory. 

education. In general, primary education consists of six to eight years of schooling starting at the age of five or six, although this varies between, and sometimes within, countries. Globally, around 89% of children aged six to twelve are enrolled in primary education, and this proportion is rising.

Secondary

In most contemporary educational systems of the world, secondary education comprises the adolescence. It is characterized by transition from the typically compulsory, comprehensive primary education for minors, to the optional, selective tertiary, "postsecondary", or "higher" education (e.g. university, vocational school) for adults. Depending on the system, schools for this period, or a part of it, may be called secondary or high schools, gymnasiums, lyceums, middle schools, colleges, or vocational schools. The exact meaning of any of these terms varies from one system to another. 

Tertiary (higher)

Higher education, also called tertiary, third stage, or postsecondary education, is the non-compulsory educational level that follows the completion of a school such as a high school or secondary school. Tertiary education is normally taken to include undergraduate and postgraduate education, as well as vocational education and training. Colleges and universities mainly provide tertiary education. Collectively, these are sometimes known as tertiary institutions. Individuals who complete tertiary education generally receive certificates, diplomas, or academic degrees.

Learning modalities

There has been much interest in learning modalities and styles over the last two decades. The most commonly employed learning modalities are:

• Visual: learning based on observation and seeing what is being learned.
• Auditory: learning based on listening to instructions/information.
• Kinesthetic: learning based on movement, e.g. hands-on work and engaging in activities.

Other commonly employed modalities include musical, interpersonal, verbal, logical, and intrapersonal.

Dunn and Dunn focused on identifying relevant stimuli that may influence learning and manipulating the school environment, at about the same time as Joseph Renzulli recommended varying teaching strategies. Howard Gardner identified a wide range of modalities in his Multiple Intelligences theories. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Keirsey Temperament Sorter, based on the works of Jung, focus on understanding how people's personality affects the way they interact personally, and how this affects the way individuals respond to each other within the learning environment. The work of David Kolb and Anthony Gregorc's Type Delineator follows a similar but more simplified approach.

Some theories propose that all individuals benefit from a variety of learning modalities, while others suggest that individuals may have preferred learning styles, learning more easily through visual or kinesthetic experiences. A consequence of the latter theory is that effective teaching should present a variety of teaching methods which cover all three learning modalities so that different students have equal opportunities to learn in a way that is effective for them. Guy Claxton has questioned the extent that learning styles such as Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic(VAK) are helpful, particularly as they can have a tendency to label children and therefore restrict learning. Recent research has argued, "there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning styles assessments into general educational practice.