The education is the whole of the means allowing the development of faculties physical, morals and intellectual of an human being. By extension, education also indicates the means set up to allow these trainings.

A right

According to the Convention of the rights of the child, education is a right government guaranteed, and must have the following objectives:

• To support the blooming of the personality of the child and the development of his gifts and its mental capacities and physical, in all the measurement of their potentialities;

• To inculcate in the child the respect human rights and the fundamental freedoms, and principles devoted in the Charter of the United Nations;

• To inculcate in the child the respect his parents, of his identity, its language and its cultural values, as well as the respect of the national values of the country in which he lives, the country of which he can be originating and of civilizations different from his;

• To prepare the child to assume the responsibilities for the life in an free society, a spirit of comprehension, peace, of tolerance, equality enters the sexes and of friendship between all the people and ethnicities, nationals and monk, and with the people of indigenous origin;

• To inculcate in the child the respect natural environment.

Education or teaching

To educate (comes from Latin educare, (ex ducere) to take care of, and also, action to make grow, to raise).

To teach, it is to transmit to the future generation a Corpus of knowledge (to know and know-how) and values considered as belonging to a common culture. It is often easy to confuse Enseignement and education. Indeed, this last term, much more general, corresponds to the total Formation of an individual, on various levels (at the level religious, moral, social, technical, scientific, medical, etc). The teaching term, on its side, refers rather to a mode of quite precise education, that is to say that “of the transmission of knowledge using signs”. “ Signs ” and “en' seign' ement” derives besides from the same Latin root. These signs used for the transmission of knowledge make, inter alia, reference to the spoken language and writing.

Enseigner is thus to educate, but to educate is not inevitably to teach.

Education strictly speaking does not limit to the instruction which relative only to pure the knowledge and know-how (would have left useful for the pupil: to know to manage in the social context and technique which will be it his).

It also aims at ensuring each individual the development of all his capacities (physical, intellectual and morals). Thus, this education will enable him to face its personal life, to manage it while being a responsible citizen in the company in which it evolves/moves, able to reflect to possibly be able to build a new business.

In practice, everyone is of agreement to consider that certain essential knowledge belongs to the minimum luggage of the citizen, and that conversely it is not possible Enseignement without a minimum of pure conventions (like the Alphabet for example) and of relational capacities, therefore of education. Instruction and education thus are generally confused.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the science of education indicated the Pédagogie. Today, in France, since creation in 1967 of the university department of Sciences of education the expression gets busy in the plural. The problems of education are studied while borrowing from several disciplines of the social sciences (Sociologie, Psychologie, Biologie, economy, Philosophie of education, etc).

Great educational fields

To know, know-how, being and knowledge-being

Schematically, one can distinguish four great educational fields: the to know , the know-how , the to be and the knowledge-being .

The to know corresponds to intellectual knowledge. Research in education relating to the to know aims to find all the means teaching making it possible learning to acquire knowledge as well as possible: reading, writing, mathematics, knowledge on the Man and the ecological environment, métaconnaissances,…

The know-how corresponds to practical competences, experiment in the exercise of an artisanal, artistic or intellectual activity. These capacities are acquired by the regular practice of an activity and partly by the training of driving automatisms. Research in education relating to the Savoir-faire aims to find all the means teaching making it possible learning as well as possible to acquire practical competences and skills.

Lêtre corresponds to the physical status and psychic of the subject. Research in education relative to L to be aims to find all the means teaching allowing, in the educational situations, to even support to reach the physical status and psychic optimal: state of Health, wellbeing, Motivation, confidence and satisfaction of the psychic needs paramount (pleasure, " liberté" , recognition, safety, justice, authenticity, intimacy, diversity, comfort, creativity, affection,…).

The knowledge-being corresponds to the capacity to produce actions and reactions adapted to the human and ecological environment. This capacity is acquired partly by the knowledge of specific knowledge . Research in education relating to the knowledge-being aims to find all the means teaching making it possible learning as well as possible to acquire the control of actions and reactions adapted at their organization and their environment: safeguarding of the environment, hygiene, Empathie, emotional control, behavioral control, responsibilisation, actions pro-social, co-operation, speech autocentré (language " je"), management of the conflicts…

Great educational deficiencies

The to know and the know-how , which represent the " part; cognitive" education, are currently well taken into account on the level of the institutional structures. On the other hand, the to be and the knowledge-being , which represent the " part; affective" and " comportementale" education, are currently regarded as depending, in the private sphere, only of the parental action.

One observes thus that there does not exist, in the contemporary Western companies, of institutional structures having a total and complete educational function. The main aim of the school system is the Instruction, allowing the acquisition of general terms of reference or professional necessary to the economic function of the company. The principal educational objective of the establishments in social matter, is rather rehabilitation, destiny primarily with public private individuals in difficulty (firstly-delinquents,…) whose objective is to bring back them to the level of the social norms of use.

The major educational questions which rise from these analyzes are:

• on the one hand, of knowing where and how the children, teenagers and adults will be able to acquire all the capacities and competences relating to the to be and with the knowledge-being which are necessary to live in complex and demanding social environment contemporary companies; in order to mitigate this deficiency, for several years, of the initiatives have developed on the territory like the network parentality, of the receptions parent-children… in order to offer services of assistance and support aus families and with the children.
• and, in addition, of knowing which are the effects individual and social of the teaching absence, institutional and cultural of a total and complete education.

To build its knowledge

Vis-a-vis the transformations in the field of the communication and with the multiplication of the knowledge, this one becomes increasingly difficult to transmit within a traditional framework (Instruction). Today it is a question of developing key competences at the pupil who will allow him to build (and not to create!) its knowledge itself (Construction) starting from information which it finds either within the framework of the school, or outside (Internet, other sources of knowing). For example, it seems more essential than a pupil is able to find the name of a department starting from a chart or a dictionary rather than it by heart knows all the departments without having the means of finding by itself information if its memory would be lacking to him.

Stakes

Education is universally regarded as an essential stake, as a vehicle of transmission to the later generations and as a means of defense and to be able of the people (access to the socially favoured positions). It is the subject thus of violent polemics, at the same time:

• to ensure its allies “best” education, possibly the detriment of adversaries,
• and to ensure in the future generations the diffusion of ideas which will result in an even military political clout.

According to the UNICEF, 9 million girls moreover than boys do not have access to education.

Some consider that the State must narrowly supervise the education delivered on their territory and the training of the Masters. In such a climate, the maintenance at least of an appearance of neutrality (i.e. in practice, of a perfect alignment on the most consensual positions or, failing this, most assured) is an essential stake for all the public institutions on the matter, under penalty of dismantling.

However, John Stuart Mill, in her Principles of political economy, (1848, deliver V CH XI) defends a different position: " It is not tolerable that a government has, of swears or de facto, a complete control on the education of people. To have this control and especially to exert it is the characteristic of a despotic behavior. A government which can mould the opinions and the feelings of people since childhood until youth can do with them what it veut."

In the same way, with the 18th century, Condorcet, large Philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, in its First report on the state education (1791), entitled " public education must be limited to the instruction" , third reason: " Because a public education would become contrary with the independence of the opinions" , affirms:

" the Vérité only can be the base of a durable prosperity, and that the lights growing unceasingly do not make it possible any more the error to be flattered of an empire eternal, the goal of education cannot be any more to devote the established opinions, but, on the contrary, to subject them to the free examination of successive generations, always more and more éclairées" .

This position is currently defended by Charles Coutel, Doyen of the Faculty of Law of Douai.

Formal education and nonformal education

The concept of nonformal education was born from the report which the school was not, and far is necessary oneself some, not the single place of education. Thus the first source of education remains the family and the entourage, with all the stakes of “social reproduction” that implies. In France, Bourdieu and Passeron supported that the school system reproduced the social system thanks to an insufficient school culture and with a free culture that the easiest families transmit to their children so that they reach in top of the social scale.

Moreover, beside its missions of education and instruction, the education system is disputed to operate, by construction, a selection (orientation towards trades, or worms of high administrative careers): the pupil receives a free instruction, but it would pay this exemption from payment while being transformed into a produced relatively passive of the “system (of production) school”. The school requires pupil whom it is integrated into educational establishment, through the control of a certain number of basic knowledge whose whole is not always formalized. In addition it can transmit only one rationalized corpus and makes the dead end on most of the cultural pool (the “good sense”, the Tabou S, the nonverbal communication, etc). Lastly, in spite of progress of the Continuing education, it lasts only a relatively short time in the life of an individual.

For all these reasons, it appears useful to certain to widen the reflection on education, without reducing it to the school framework. Thus, the nonformal education, which brings competences specific to the individual and that this one cannot acquire (Tiehi, 1995) within the framework of formal education, is in particular delivered within the youth organizations.

Despite everything that, education allowed, historically, in France, has most of the underprivileged classes to reach a statute of middle-class. For some, its current orientation towards an early professionalisation of part of youth would be contradictory with its finality of general culture of the pupils for their blooming in the company as a citizen. For others, it can facilitate on the contrary this integration in the social life and professional, objective quite as essential of education.

Education systems

See also: History of education

The education systems are very variable in space and time, education being adapted sometimes to the socio-economic requirements of the adults (need for the childish labor, work of the adults and particularly of the women, etc) that with the needs for the children. However, one distinguishes from about generalized formulas:

• education concentrates on the children and concerns only marginally the adults.
• during early childhood, education is dealt with by the family, where is done the training of the oral language and the rudiments of the good manners necessary to the social life.
• during the childhood (as from approximately 7 years until puberty), dealt with collective (at least partially), for the training of legal, religious and cultural rudiments (of which, possibly, the written language).
• during adolescence, specialization, by the training in a Master or (nonexclusive) collectively.

Education system of various countries

Europe

• the European Union engaged since 1999 in the Processus of Bologna the purpose of which is to build a European space of higher education before 2010. It is not a question to set up a single university system but to place well the national systems diversified within a common framework.
• See also the education systems in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Swiss

France

See also: Education system French

Asia

• the education system Japanese is very close to the Anglo-Saxon model. Contrary to the Germany and to a lesser extent to the France, there is no orientation before the entry in university. The university system being very élitiste, the schoolboys work hard from the nursery school to the entry in university. Many nursery schools recruit even on contest, the questions being of course adapted to the age of the children (concerning the forms, the colors and of simple knowledge on nature). Moreover, the courses of the evening ( juku , 塾) are almost a rule for the high-school pupils. The college does not end not by an examination but in the entrance examinations in university.

• Formerly, in the Popular republic of China, education was available only for the rich person. However, the accession with the capacity of the Chinese Communist party in 1949 brought decades of revolution in the school system. Today, the government is directed towards a universal primary education and the training of the labor.

Americas

The United States of America

• the Education system of the United States of America is decentralized, the majority of the decisions on the programs and the financing being taken by local instances: the school boards . The educational programs are in general establish by each state. The federal government intervenes especially in the financing of education.

The private schools work out their program freely and in the public system, only 22 States draw up a list of handbooks recommended. In the majority of the States, freedom of choice is total. The legislative assemblies of each federate state establish a common minimum base of knowledge in the programs. The programs are not the same ones from one state to another. The secondary suffers from many deficiencies but higher education is one of most famous world.

Canada

• See also the System of Québécois education.

Mexico

Education in Mexico,

See also: Mexican System of education

Statistics

Table 1: Population between 25 and 34 years having arrived to a secondary formation: Source: Glances over education , annual report of OECD, 2003, cité in the newspaper '' Le Monde '', on September 13rd, 2005.

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Table n°2: Rate of obtaining a diploma of secondary education in the population in typical age to obtain it: Source: annual report of the OECD, Glances on education, 2003, cité in the newspaper '' Le Monde '', on September 13rd, 2005.

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Table 3: Rate of access to higher education: Source: annual report of the OECD, Glances on education, 2003, cité in the newspaper '' Le Monde '', on September 13rd, 2005.

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Table 4: Rate of obtaining a post-graduate advanced degree in three to six years: Source: annual report of the OECD, Glances on education, 2003, cité in the newspaper '' Le Monde '', on September 13rd, 2005.

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Quotations

“Be very careful butt what you could in his head, for you will never, ever, could it out. ” (George Berkeley)

“Take guard well so that you put to him at the head because you will never be able, never, to make some leave. ”

“education is expensive? He well, Sirs, thus test ignorance! ”. (Abraham Lincoln)

“To educate, it is not to fill of the vases but is to light fires. ” (Montaigne, Tests )

“And finally it has progress there, for no schoolboy in the world, neither in what it hears nor in what he sees, but only in what he makes. ” (Alain, Matter on education , II)

“If the Master keep silent himself, and if the children read, all is well. ” (Alain, Matter on education , XXV)

“education does not consist with gaver but to give hunger. ” (M.Tardy)

“the only trained individual, it is that which learned how to learn, how to adapt, how to change, it is that which seized that no knowledge is certain and that only the capacity to acquire knowledge can lead to a founded safety. ” (Carl Rogers 1976)

“a lesson must be an answer. If it fills this office, it will be active school, when well even the pupils would anything else make only listen.” (Edouard Claparède, functional education)

“To give to a child the desire to learn and any method will be good. ” (J.J.Rousseau, the Emile, 1762)

“the goal of the instruction is not to make admire with the men a done everything legislation, but to make them able to appreciate it and correct it. It is not a question to subject each generation to the opinions as with the will of that which precedes it, but to light them more and more, so that each one becomes increasingly worthy to be controlled by its own reason. ” (Condorcet, 1743-1794)

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