Question

Discuss the manifest and latent functions of education? Identify rules or regulations that some educational institutions may use to encourage students to maintain the status quo and discourage individual creativity, can you also relate? What trends in education are beneficial and which are not? (Is mandatory testing/STAR doing its job? Is bilingual education working? should students learn a language before graduating?) Consider the high school you attended, do you feel like you received a good education; did it prepare you for college?

Answer 1

Education is one of the most important elements that empowers a human being to excel in their life as it doesn’t only teach someone the subject but also the human elements such as communication, team work, personality development etc. It also helps one overcome any prejudice that they have based on race, ethnicity and culture.

Most of the schools today, in the name of standardised tests kill creativity and project scores as the benchmark for performance. They also maintain status quo by maintaining different syllabi, different infrastructure and different amount of money for facilities and training.

Most of the schools practice the star awarding for high performers and put down and shatter the dreams of other. Some people perform low because of their socio, economic and family background but the schools brand them as low potential.

Bilingual education is very important in order to give the students an opportunity to learn another language and culture. For someone who is learning subjects not in their mother tongue, bilingual education will help them understand things better and at the same time will give them some opportunity to learn another language. In my point of view yes, students need to learn another language before graduate because of the globalisation.

I think my high school education didn’t prepare me enough to think but to memorise things and prepared me for some standardised tests which they told would help me get a seat in a decent university.