Education: Meaning in the broader sense and narrow sense
On this page, you will get information about the meaning of education in a broader and narrow sense:-
1. Education: Meaning in the broader sense
In
the wider sense, it is a process that goes on throughout life and is promoted
by almost
every experience in life - S. S. Mackenzie
• By education, I mean the all-round
drawing out of the best in child and man’s body, mind
and soul- M. K. Gandhi
• Education in its widest sense
includes all the influences, which at upon an individual
during his passage from cradle to
the grave.-Dumvile
• Education, in its broadest sense,
is the means of social continuity.-John Dewey.
Education in the wider sense is a
life-long process.
It begins with the birth of a child and ends with his death. It is a
continuous process. Life is a continuous process of growth and development and
so education is also a continuous process.
An individual learns through his experiences, which are acquired
throughout his life.
Education is not merely a collection
of some information.
It is the acquisition of experiences through life in the social and
natural environment.
It includes all the knowledge and experiences, acquired during infancy,
childhood, boyhood, adolescence, youth, manhood or old age through any agency
of education- the press, the travels, the club, the nature- formally and
informally.
Thus, education becomes the
sum-total of all experiences that the child receives either in
school or outside.
In the wider sense, life is
education and education is life.
Education is the process whereby a human being gradually adopts himself in
various ways to his physical, social, and spiritual environments. It is the
development of all those capacities in the
individual, which will enable him to
control his environment and fulfil his possibilities.
Education, in the broader sense, is
the transmission of life by the living, to the living, through
living and for living”.
Education is a means for the development of balanced all-round harmonious
development of personality
2. Education: Meaning in the Narrow sense
Education in its narrow sense has to
strive to attain predetermined aims during a specified time by providing
pre-structured knowledge to children through set methods of teaching.
The purpose is to achieve the
mental development of children entering school.
In the narrow sense, education may
be taken to mean any consciously directed effort to develop and cultivate our
powers.
• Education is a process in which
and by which knowledge, character and behaviour of the
young are shaped and moulded.
• The influence of the environment
of the individual with a view to producing a permanent
change in his habits of behaviour, or thought and
attitude.
Education, in the narrower sense, is regarded as
equivalent to instruction.
It consists of the “specific influences”
consciously designed in a school or in a college or in an institution to bring
in the development and growth of the child.
The word school includes the whole machinery of education from Kindergarten to
University.
The school represents formal
education as it imparts education directly and systematically.
According to John Dewey: “The
school exists to provide a special environment for the
formative period of human life.
School is a consciously designed institution, the sole
concern of which is to educate the
child. This special environment is essential to explain
our complex society and
civilization”.
According to Mackenzie,
education, in the narrower sense, is a conscious effort to develop and
cultivate our innate powers. It is also regarded as the acquisition of
knowledge. According to it, education is a process by which knowledge or
information on a subject is
acquired.
But the acquisition of knowledge is
not the only or supreme aim of education, yet it is one of
the important aims of education.
Education in the Broader sense
is the total development of the personality. Education consists of all those
experiences, which affect the individual from birth till death.
In its narrow sense, education is a
formal conservative process mainly confined to the school
campuses. In its wider sense,
education is the total development of personality and a lifelong
process.
The real concept of education is a
synthesis of these two processes.
This synthesis will develop the child to the full according to his inherent
tendencies with emphasis on
the concurrent development of
society, of which he is an integral part.
Such an education will develop
both the child and the society to higher and higher positions of glory and
cultural eminence.