The Goal Of Education

How often do we think of education as a point to study what we will use in the future?

When we start to think about the utility of education, we start to lose the macro perspective of it – we study Mathematics only if we can see how to use the calculations in engineering, we put less focus on Arts & Crafts as we probably will not use that in the future, and we study specific topics in Science if we want to be a doctor.

Especially in today’s day and age of technological advances, with massive open online courses (MOOC), students are starting to be disgruntled at the point of coming to schools. Why come to schools when they can stay at home and learn content, useful for work purposes in the future?

More than schools being a place for interactions and learning life skills, I think the purpose of education is to learn perseverance. Perseverance to study subjects that students do not see the point in studying, perseverance despite the dull nature of the subjects, and perseverance despite doing terribly in the subjects.

Because in the future, students will face lessons that are beyond their control – problems in relationships, in the workplace, and in their future marriages. Thus, if they do not learn the simple but profound nature of perseverance, they will not be able to push through the difficult times in relationships, the mundane times at work, and the challenging moments in marriages.

May we inculcate the true goal of education to our students.