Education at Risk, a Nation at Risk

Education of the young has been part of society’s needs of the modern times. Colleges and universities that offer quality education most often implies high financing.

And though our world pushed to modernization, it seems that education has been deteriorating. Despite the fact that education in our country has long proven to be superb, it is not a justification in its dwindling quality. It is affirmed that education of the youth help them in future careers and endeavours but slowly, the education system has become less significant to us.

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That we have compromised this commitment is, upon reflection, hardly surprising, given the multitude of often conflicting demands we have placed on our Nation’s schools and colleges. They are routinely called on to provide solutions to personal, social, and political problems that the home and other institutions either will not or cannot resolve. We must understand that these demands on our schools and colleges often exact an educational cost as well as a financial one (A Nation at Risk, 1983).

The above quoted article from the National Commission on Excellence in Education dates back decades ago and yet, it states a present reality in our society.

Though our educational institutions call to educate the youth in academic matters, our society today imparts too many varying demands from these institutions. Education should not begin in our schools and colleges. One’s learning should be initiated from the family and the environment a child lives in. And yet, it is not unexpected that some of us demand these responsibilities from our educational institutions.

Personal, social and political concerns that seek to develop each man are solely handed over to school professors and teachers that actually do not have time for each student in class. Truly, these concerns are part of classroom discussions and curriculums; nevertheless, they should first be encountered by the youth at home.

Schools and universities only act as guides in a person’s quest for his principles. These schools and universities are not sole educators but are team members in shaping our future citizens. It does not mean that if we pay for the education we get, we will leave all the responsibilities to them. No. they are just our collaborators in teaching the youth the values we wish them to have to face the challenges of career life, nationalism and personal identity.

Our increasing dependence on the learning of our youth to colleges and universities must be one of the many causes of the decline in quality of our country’s education. And so, though we have much to be proud of from the history of achievements our country had, we are faced with a predicament which should have been eradicated in advance.

Horace Mann

Horace Mann, an advocate of equality in terms of education, would probably uphold that the various extra demands of our people on these institutions are just fitting. Since he believes in the extended educational curriculum in public schools, he would rather include personal, social and political concerns in the education of the youth. It might be an extra baggage for the educators but it is his way of shaping a person’s identity. Even so, he upholds the educators in high esteem. And though he purges them with great responsibilities, he regards them justly.

Mann believes that “education prevents both the revenge and madness” of society (Mann, 1848). He believes that to prevent tyranny as well as poverty, education should be granted with higher significance. Total civilization comes with education and so, educators should have that sense of significance with the work they do to help uplift man’s development.

Educators are makers of civilized men. Thus, it is only fitting that all areas of a man’s identity be taken up by the lessons one encounters inside the classroom. The thought of degradation in the quality of

education we have today might somehow depress Horace Mann in his quest for equality and justice.

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