Commentry - (2021) Volume 9, Issue 3
Education and social mobility
Silva Bravo*Received: 07-Jun-2021 Published: 28-Jun-2021
Description
The word education comes from e-ducere, a Latin word meaning “to lead out.” This leading out means “guiding on a way especially by going in advance”. This was practiced by a gaggle of itinerant teachers called the Sophists who “promised to offer students the required knowledge and skills to realize positions with the city-state”. However, in this day and age, it seems that our students don't strive to realize important positions within the society.
Furthermore, they are doing not view education as a way to require them into the upper steps on the “ladder of social mobility”. Where then is education’s “leading out” purpose in this situation? Where now's education’s promise of data and skills to students for them to realize decent and proper jobs in society? According to Ayn Rand, “the only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life-by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality”. If today’s reality speaks of various struggles in life such as money, love, and happiness, then education should continue to serve its purpose of helping students cope up with these struggles.
To convince our students to pursue education, educational institutions got to make them feel they're accepted whatever their social station could also be. Education should ensure “equality of opportunity” for all. The role of education in promoting social mobility has been a central issue in current sociological and political debates. Education has become a big think about determining which job people enter, thus determining their class position.
Studies have shown that bourgeoisie families believe that “education and therefore the acquisition of educational qualifications are important means through which they will expire their social and economic advantage to their children.” this is often why nowadays, children from these families are more determined to urge a degree than children from labour families. But this could not be the case since every student should strive to enhance their lives also as their families’, especially if they need long experienced social immobility.
Educational institutions like you play a very crucial and important role in the process of convincing children to pursue higher education, not just for themselves, but for their families, and for the nation. These students are our future and we do not want them to dream ordinary dreams. We want them to aim high and never lose sight of the opportunities that are supposedly for them. You and your “admission, selection, and certification processes may play a big role in reducing or maintaining social inequalities”. You need to reach out not just to the privileged ones who have the capability to pay for higher learning but also to the less-fortunate and bright ones because they too will play an enormous part on our nation’s destiny. These students need to know and access the various options they have when it comes to educational opportunities.
As what education has promised then and now, your institution should “lead out” our students, lead them out of the social immobility they experience in order that they're going to be encouraged to enhance their lives and not be discouraged with the shortage of opportunities for them. You need to inform them that indeed, the education you will provide will be for their own, their families’, and the nations’ benefit.