WHAT IS THE DEFINITION AND MEANING OF EDUCATION?



The child at birth is born with certain biological inheritance. The biological inheritance alone is not sufficient to enable him function in a social culture. To equip him with the necessary skills and information, concepts and attitudes, which society has created as a separate agency school, where he or she can develop all the qualities and abilities required for successful social adjustment. In the process of education, we try to shape the behaviour or modification of behaiour of individuals for adequate adjustment in the society. From the foregoing, lets look at some definitions of education by some authors.

Okafor (1981) defined education as the consciously planned and systematically applied formal education or training carried on through the various social agencies of education especially the school. If we see education as schooling, we vividly see the change brought about through education. In his book written he maintained that education is all those experiences of the individual, through which knowledge is acquired the intellent enlightened, or the will strengthened. A good example of this view of education is the traditional African education in the words of Fatunwa (1974:15) African education emphasized social responsibility, job orientation, political participation and spiritual and moral values.
The qualities of an education man in African society may be quite different from that in American or British culture. This is so because what we value America. Thus Fatunwa (1974:17) defined education as the aggregate of all the processes by which a child or young adult develops forms of behaviour which are of positive value to the society in which he lives. In this sense education implies the transmission of the culture of the society.
In a broad perspective education goes more than schooling to include all influencies, social, cultural, political, religious that influence from birth to death, Thus education in a broad perspective includes all the worthwhile activities which an individuals engaged in so al to become a contributing member of the society in which he belongs.
This implies that in every, education has a purpose of aims to it. The aims vary from one society to another. Thus Nweke (1989:20) said that a talk about aims of education could ordinarily involve specific goals set by certain societies according to the purpose of its members and their nature. The main aim of education is to help each individual to realize to the fullest his capabilities and grow into a person who can participate freely with other persons.
In a narrow or strict sense the “education refers to what in the institution of learning. This us of what happens in schools or colleges. In the view of Okafor (1992) education implies the education and training, carried on through the various social agencies of education, teaching as well as discipline are employed.
It is always difficult to give a precise one universally accepted definitive of education, The reason being that education is view from different perspective and its definition varies from society and era to another. Education is related to so many concepts. However, education carries the central notion of preparing men to face and surmount the challenges of life. It prepares men for worthwhile listing. It is also the raising of the intellectual tone in society cultivating the public mind, purifying the national taste, giving enlargement and sobriety to the ideas of the age, facilitating the exercise of private life. In other word education is to make men.
One of the comprehensive and all embracing definitions of education is as fellows.
Education in its everyday sense could mean the formal training that is gives in schools and institutions, that is, the acquisition of the ability to read and write and calculate. It could mean the specialized training that given on the job, to enable one acquire skill in a certain field. In the wider sense, education could mean the training of the entire person to enable him not only perform in a given job, but also to enable him to fit himself for living in society.
Broadly speaking, we see education as the influence of person who holds a vital belief brought to bean on another person, with the object of making him also hold that with belief. Those of us in the teaching profession clearly remember having been told that education was the art of “leading out’ and that this was proved by the derivation of the word. Education, meaning to education’ or to bring up’ to raise. The professional teacher by skillful questioning student think for himself relate one fact to another, and form his own conclusion.
This is certainly the whole of the complex process we call education.
We have seen that the person who is being educated has influence brought to bear on him. Education, in the formal sense of the word, refer to the systematically organized programme skill, understanding attitudes, and behaviour patterns in members of given social group schools and institutions of high learning are established for his purpose.
Education has also been viewed as a process, a product, and as a discipline view as a process, education is the means by which men acquire the civilization of the present, and make the civilization of the future. It is also a process of initiation into the society or a process of inculcating a way of life in the mind a newly born child which is like a blank table (tabula rasa) on which experience write ideas viewed as a product education means change in behaviour. In other words to be education means change one’s behaviour. As a discipline, education is a following question and responses.
                        Why should it be taught?
                        What should be taught?
                        Whom should it be taught?
                        Who to teach?              
            According to Okafor (1992:19) education is a process of acculturation through which the individual is helped to attain the development of his potentialities, and their maximum activation, when necessary according to right reason and to activated thereby his perfect self -fillment this definition implies that education is a process deliberately planned and methodically applied.   
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