This document discusses different perspectives on the concept of education. It explores definitions of education as the development of the mind, preparation for work, and promotion of well-being. The development of the mind through gaining knowledge and understanding is posited as intrinsically worthwhile and a core differentiator of humans from other beings. Education is also discussed in terms of preparing individuals for the workforce or developing livelihood skills. Additionally, education can aim to increase happiness and well-being. The document examines debates around these perspectives and emphasizes that the development of critical thinking through education is essential for human progress.

1. What is Education?
1
Prof Joseph Jinja Divala
jdivala@uj.ac.za

2. Introduction
What is education?
Why education?
What is education for?
What it is to be educated?
What is the aim of educating/education?
education’ is a changing, contested and often highly personalised,
historically and politically constructed concept ( Harris, 1999)
Root word: EDUCA-RE – bring forth, carry forward, bring up
‘lead out the individual nature in each man and woman to its true fullness’,
‘to come into accord with the teaching of nature( Rousseau...naturalist)
All education is purposeful... focused and goal -oriented

3. ‘cultivation of the intellect’ (R. M. Hutchins...idealist/rationalist)
 ‘make people happier, more secure, less neurotic( fixated), less
prejudiced’( A. S. Neill) ,
education must aim at virtue and teach man to deny his desires,
inclinations and appetite, and follow as reason directs’( John
Locke)

4. What does being educated mean?
a)Having a body of knowledge and a degree of understanding
enabling one to know beyond a collection of disjointed facts.
b)Not inert but characterizing the full life and breadth of a person.
One becoming what s/he knows.
c)Having a cognitive perspective that makes a person transcend
own limitations.
d)Not merely being competent at a task but having an improved
belief system in tandem with the competencies.
(Marples, 2010, p. 36 quoting RS Peters, 1966, 30-4)

5. The intrinsically worthwhile as core to education
The intrinsic and extrinsic distinctions
Intrinsically worthwhile activities - those we engage in because
they are good in themselves.
The development of the mind for its own sake.
Allusions to distinctions between human beings and other
beings on earth

6. Development of the mind as central to education
(my interpretation of RS Peters’ notion)
The development
of the mind
Education for work or
livelihood
Education for well-
being

7. The development of the mind - Knowledge for its own
sake
The main known differentiator between human and non-humans
The connections between being human and the development of
the mind.
Education: knowing and understanding something just for the sake
of knowing, i.e. just for the sake of the human mind to be what it is.
Education’s role in developing thinking and critical thinking is rooted
here.
Indoctrination, sub-servient or poor education and standards is
counter- education, anti-human!
Link to Ethics- emancipation- poverty and inequalities

8. Education for work/livelihood
A belief that education prepares one for the real world of work
Largely a pragmatist position and depends on a positivist
constructivist mentality
Tends to mark the boundaries of knowledge to what someone
can do with it
Nevertheless, the education – work direct connection is always
illusive
Rather this confuses education with schooling and training or
otherwise also coming up in the form of vocational or technical
education.

9. What kinds of jobs should people be trained for?
The problematics of jobs of the future.
The future as indefinite and yet to be defined in so far as
human beings are concerned.
The main sure thing for tomorrow is the human being
Serious problems in vocationalizing all education. (issue of
drawing direct link between offerings in the university and
what one can do with them after graduation)

10. Education for well-being
Education
for
well-
being Happiness as
well-being
Desire
satisfaction

11. Marples’ Summary of Living Autonomously (Marples,
2010,p 45)
A Reasonable degree of self-knowledge, being able to
recognize the forces of socialization in relation to one’s beliefs
and desires plus the will and courage to resist them if
necessary in accordance to one’s evaluations.
Ability to relate one’s present choices to one’s past and
future in order to provide some kind of shape to one’s life
thereby distinguishing it from that of an infant who is episodic
The ability and opportunity to choose between significant
arrays of options (Raz (1986) calls this willing choice)

12. By the end of this lesson try to answer the following question:
In what sense would you argue that the good should be or is
the instinctive default operation of being human in the
process of education?
In what ways would a poor education or a poorly designed
and executed educational process be bad for the
recipients?