essay on secondary education

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The French system

The german system, the british system, the soviet system, the u.s. system.

secondary education

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• Academia - Status of secondary education in India: An analysis
• The Canadian Encyclopedia - Secondary Education
• UNESCO-EOLSS - The Importance of Secondary Education
• StateUniversity.com - Secondary Education
• Queensland Government - Department of Education - Secondary education
• Table Of Contents

secondary education , the second stage traditionally found in formal education , beginning about age 11 to 13 and ending usually at age 15 to 18. The dichotomy between elementary education and secondary education has gradually become less marked, not only in curricula but also in organization. The proliferation of middle schools, junior schools, junior high schools, and other divisions has produced systems with more than two stages.

(Read Arne Duncan’s Britannica essay on “Education: The Great Equalizer.”)

Because of their wide influence throughout the world, it is appropriate to sketch briefly the educational patterns of a few major European nations and the United States.

France initiated a number of educational reforms beginning in 1968. Contemporary France has a first cycle of education for all children up to grade 5. The transitional grades 6 and 7 are followed by grades 8 and 9, which comprise the so-called guidance cycle, in which students pursue a certain core curriculum, a second foreign language, and a collection of electives. They must decide by the end of grade 9 whether to pursue the academic tracts in upper secondary school or to pursue vocational options. In principle, parents, students, and school counselors must reach an agreement on this decision, but appeal procedures exist to resolve differences.

Students 15 to 18 years of age enter either of two lycées, or high schools: (1) the lycée of general and technological education ( lycée d’enseignement général et technologique , or LEGT) is the successor to the traditional academic lycée of the past; (2) the vocational-educational lycée ( lycée d’enseignement professionnel , or LEP) encompasses a range of vocational-technical studies and training. The curriculum of the LEGT begins in grade 10 with certain tracked basic courses that lead in grades 11 and 12 to specializations in any one of five subject areas: literary-philosophical studies, economics and social sciences, mathematics and physical sciences, earth sciences and biological sciences, and scientific and industrial technology. In grades 10 and 11 there is a common core of subjects plus options, but in grade 12 all subjects, being optional, are oriented toward the student’s major area of study. The baccalauréat examination taken at the end of these studies qualifies students for university entrance.

Vocational-technical secondary education includes a three-year selection of optional courses leading to one of the 30 or so technical baccalauréats. A student may instead opt for a one-year course conferring no particular qualification or may opt for apprenticeship training in the workplace.

In Germany, schools are the responsibility of the governments of the states, or Länder, and the structure of elementary and secondary education is not entirely consistent throughout the nation. In all states, however, the period of elementary education covers eight or nine grades. After this period, three basic options are available to the pupils. They may, after counseling by the elementary school teacher and upon the request of the parents, be placed in a Real schule, a Gymnasium, or a Hauptschule , the last representing a continuation of elementary education.

Those pupils attending the Hauptschule proceed with their study of language, arithmetic, geography, history, science , music, art, and physical education . After completion of a four- or five-year program of studies at the Hauptschule, the pupil typically enters apprenticeship training.

In Germany the term “secondary school” refers to institutions offering courses leading to the “Certificate of Maturity” (the Reifezeugnis ), a qualification for entrance to an institution of higher education . The Realschule offers pupils further general education, some prevocational courses, and English-language study. At the age of 16, students conclude their program of studies and transfer to a vocational school or enter apprenticeship training.

If academically qualified, a pupil may also transfer to the Gymnasium . The Gymnasium, the third alternative for German youth, offers rigorous academic preparation for higher education. Like the lycée in France and the grammar school in England , the Gymnasium is designed for those students who have shown the most academic promise; and its curriculum, emphasizing languages, mathematics, natural sciences, and social sciences, requires a high degree of diligence throughout all of the nine grades. Unsuccessful students in the Gymnasium may be transferred to the Hauptschule. At the age of 16, moreover, pupils may terminate their academic studies and enter a vocational school.

Students in the Gymnasium must pass an examination, the Abitur , entitling them to the Certificate of Maturity, if they are to be admitted to a German university. The content of the Abitur is adjusted to the focus of studies, such as classical languages or mathematics-science, chosen earlier by the student.

Great Britain’s current system of secondary education is the successor to a slightly older system that assigned students at age 11 to one of three types of schools by means of selection tests. From the 1950s and ’60s these schools were gradually replaced by a single type of school called a comprehensive school , which admits children irrespective of ability or aptitude and which offers both academic and vocational programs under one roof.

In Britain the first stage of education is called primary education and includes students from ages 5 (4 in Northern Ireland) to 11 (12 in Scotland). About 90 percent of students then attend comprehensive schools. These schools are organized in various ways, serving ages 11 to 18; 11–12 to 16; or 12–14 to 16–18. Most of the remaining students receive secondary education in secondary modern or grammar schools (these being remnants of the old tripartite school system), to which they are assigned after selective procedures at age 11.

The Education Reform Act 1988 established a national curriculum and regular assessment of performance for children of ages 5 to 16 in all state schools in England and Wales . Similar legislation was passed in Northern Ireland in 1990. In England, Scotland, and Wales parents have a statutory right to express preference for a specific school.

Those students seeking university entrance must successfully complete a series of examinations that result in the General Certificate of Education. These examinations have two levels: General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE; formerly “ordinary”) and advanced. Entry to a university requires a prescribed combination of passes on the GCSE and advanced level in such subjects as English, foreign language, science, and mathematics. The sixth-form curriculum (i.e., that of the last two years of secondary school) is largely oriented toward preparation for the advanced-level examination and provides intense specialization.

In Britain a small, separate, but highly significant group of independent schools also exists. These primary and secondary schools are financially self-supporting. The best known of the independent schools are the “public schools,” some of which, notably Eton and Harrow, have long maintained a distinguished reputation. These schools for centuries have prepared students academically for higher education, typically at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge , and ultimately for leadership in British life. Although a controversial element in British education and frequently accused of reinforcing invidious social distinctions, these institutions remain popular.

The contemporary nations that once formed the U.S.S.R. have an educational pattern that differs distinctively from that just described. The first stage of education takes place in an eight-year general-education school. After graduating from the eight-year school, students, if qualified, have a number of secondary schools open to them, including polytechnical or general secondary schools and various vocational or technical schools. Education authorities attempt to provide prolonged guidance for the pupils and place them into increasingly differentiated programs of study throughout the last few years of the elementary school and the first two or three years of secondary school. Many of those leaving the elementary school go directly into an occupation. Most critical for students wishing to continue their education is the selection at 17 or 18 years of age for higher education. The universities and higher institutes admit only 15 to 20 percent of the graduates of the secondary-level institutions. Most graduates of the polytechnical or general secondary schools are required to take jobs for two or three years, after which those qualified may proceed to higher education.

Historically, the United States has made little distinction between primary and elementary education—i.e., between those lower schools that prepared students for advanced (or higher) education and those schools that merely provided literacy and some general education for larger groups of children. This heritage has led in the United States to a single system of elementary and secondary education for the great majority of its students.

In the United States, education is the responsibility of the individual states; therefore, some variation in structure exists. Typically, however, students at the age of 13 or 14 enter a neighbourhood secondary school; the education there usually lasts for four years, and the students graduate at age 18 on average.

In the United States, more than 80 percent of the secondary-age groups attend secondary school. The American goal for decades has been to provide secondary education for all within a single type of institution popularly referred to as the comprehensive high school . Although the precise meaning of this term is frequently not clear, comprehensive schools usually include a broad program of general and specialized curricula and accommodate a wide range in the academic abilities of the pupils. Thus, in the same American secondary school, some students plan to pursue university study and others seek terminal secondary education.

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The Big List of Essay Topics for High School (120+ Ideas!)

Ideas to inspire every young writer!

High school students generally do a lot of writing, learning to use language clearly, concisely, and persuasively. When it’s time to choose an essay topic, though, it’s easy to come up blank. If that’s the case, check out this huge round-up of essay topics for high school. You’ll find choices for every subject and writing style.

• Argumentative Essay Topics
• Cause-and-Effect Essay Topics
• Compare-Contrast Essay Topics
• Descriptive Essay Topics
• Expository and Informative Essay Topics
• Humorous Essay Topics

Literary Essay Topics

• Narrative and Personal Essay Topics
• Personal Essay Topics
• Persuasive Essay Topics

Research Essay Topics

Argumentative essay topics for high school.

When writing an argumentative essay, remember to do the research and lay out the facts clearly. Your goal is not necessarily to persuade someone to agree with you, but to encourage your reader to accept your point of view as valid. Here are some possible argumentative topics to try. ( Here are 100 more compelling argumentative essay topics. )

• The most important challenge our country is currently facing is … (e.g., immigration, gun control, economy)
• The government should provide free internet access for every citizen.
• All drugs should be legalized, regulated, and taxed.
• Vaping is less harmful than smoking tobacco.
• The best country in the world is …
• Parents should be punished for their minor children’s crimes.
• Should all students have the ability to attend college for free?
• Should physical education be part of the standard high school curriculum?

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• Schools should require recommended vaccines for all students, with very limited exceptions.
• Is it acceptable to use animals for experiments and research?
• Does social media do more harm than good?
• Capital punishment does/does not deter crime.
• What one class should all high schools students be required to take and pass in order to graduate?
• Do we really learn anything from history, or does it just repeat itself over and over?
• Are men and women treated equally?

Cause-and-Effect Essay Topics for High School

A cause-and-effect essay is a type of argumentative essay. Your goal is to show how one specific thing directly influences another specific thing. You’ll likely need to do some research to make your point. Here are some ideas for cause-and-effect essays. ( Get a big list of 100 cause-and-effect essay topics here. )

• Humans are causing accelerated climate change.
• Fast-food restaurants have made human health worse over the decades.
• What caused World War II? (Choose any conflict for this one.)
• Describe the effects social media has on young adults.

• How does playing sports affect people?
• What are the effects of loving to read?
• Being an only/oldest/youngest/middle child makes you …
• What effect does violence in movies or video games have on kids?
• Traveling to new places opens people’s minds to new ideas.
• Racism is caused by …

Compare-Contrast Essay Topics for High School

As the name indicates, in compare-and-contrast essays, writers show the similarities and differences between two things. They combine descriptive writing with analysis, making connections and showing dissimilarities. The following ideas work well for compare-contrast essays. ( Find 80+ compare-contrast essay topics for all ages here. )

• Public and private schools
• Capitalism vs. communism
• Monarchy or democracy
• Dogs vs. cats as pets

• Paper books or e-books
• Two political candidates in a current race
• Going to college vs. starting work full-time
• Working your way through college as you go or taking out student loans
• iPhone or Android
• Instagram vs. Twitter (or choose any other two social media platforms)

Descriptive Essay Topics for High School

Bring on the adjectives! Descriptive writing is all about creating a rich picture for the reader. Take readers on a journey to far-off places, help them understand an experience, or introduce them to a new person. Remember: Show, don’t tell. These topics make excellent descriptive essays.

• Who is the funniest person you know?
• What is your happiest memory?
• Tell about the most inspirational person in your life.
• Write about your favorite place.
• When you were little, what was your favorite thing to do?
• Choose a piece of art or music and explain how it makes you feel.
• What is your earliest memory?

• What’s the best/worst vacation you’ve ever taken?
• Describe your favorite pet.
• What is the most important item in the world to you?
• Give a tour of your bedroom (or another favorite room in your home).
• Describe yourself to someone who has never met you.
• Lay out your perfect day from start to finish.
• Explain what it’s like to move to a new town or start a new school.
• Tell what it would be like to live on the moon.

Expository and Informative Essay Topics for High School

Expository essays set out clear explanations of a particular topic. You might be defining a word or phrase or explaining how something works. Expository or informative essays are based on facts, and while you might explore different points of view, you won’t necessarily say which one is “better” or “right.” Remember: Expository essays educate the reader. Here are some expository and informative essay topics to explore. ( See 70+ expository and informative essay topics here. )

• What makes a good leader?
• Explain why a given school subject (math, history, science, etc.) is important for students to learn.
• What is the “glass ceiling” and how does it affect society?
• Describe how the internet changed the world.
• What does it mean to be a good teacher?

• Explain how we could colonize the moon or another planet.
• Discuss why mental health is just as important as physical health.
• Describe a healthy lifestyle for a teenager.
• Choose an American president and explain how their time in office affected the country.
• What does “financial responsibility” mean?

Humorous Essay Topics for High School

Humorous essays can take on any form, like narrative, persuasive, or expository. You might employ sarcasm or satire, or simply tell a story about a funny person or event. Even though these essay topics are lighthearted, they still take some skill to tackle well. Give these ideas a try.

• What would happen if cats (or any other animal) ruled the world?
• What do newborn babies wish their parents knew?
• Explain the best ways to be annoying on social media.
• Invent a wacky new sport, explain the rules, and describe a game or match.

• Imagine a discussion between two historic figures from very different times, like Cleopatra and Queen Elizabeth I.
• Retell a familiar story in tweets or other social media posts.
• Describe present-day Earth from an alien’s point of view.
• Choose a fictional character and explain why they should be the next president.
• Describe a day when kids are in charge of everything, at school and at home.

Literary essays analyze a piece of writing, like a book or a play. In high school, students usually write literary essays about the works they study in class. These literary essay topic ideas focus on books students often read in high school, but many of them can be tweaked to fit other works as well.

• Discuss the portrayal of women in Shakespeare’s Othello .
• Explore the symbolism used in The Scarlet Letter .
• Explain the importance of dreams in Of Mice and Men .
• Compare and contrast the romantic relationships in Pride and Prejudice .

• Dissect the allegory of Animal Farm and its relation to contemporary events.
• Interpret the author’s take on society and class structure in The Great Gatsby .
• Explore the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia.
• Discuss whether Shakespeare’s portrayal of young love in Romeo and Juliet is accurate.
• Explain the imagery used in Beowulf .

Narrative and Personal Essay Topics for High School

Think of a narrative essay like telling a story. Use some of the same techniques that you would for a descriptive essay, but be sure you have a beginning, middle, and end. A narrative essay doesn’t necessarily need to be personal, but they often are. Take inspiration from these narrative and personal essay topics.

• Describe a performance or sporting event you took part in.
• Explain the process of cooking and eating your favorite meal.
• Write about meeting your best friend for the first time and how your relationship developed.
• Tell about learning to ride a bike or drive a car.
• Describe a time in your life when you’ve been scared.

• Share the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you.
• Tell about a time when you overcame a big challenge.
• Tell the story of how you learned an important life lesson.
• Describe a time when you or someone you know experienced prejudice or oppression.
• Explain a family tradition, how it developed, and its importance today.
• What is your favorite holiday? How does your family celebrate it?
• Retell a familiar story from the point of view of a different character.
• Describe a time when you had to make a difficult decision.
• Tell about your proudest moment.

Persuasive Essay Topics for High School

Persuasive essays are similar to argumentative , but they rely less on facts and more on emotion to sway the reader. It’s important to know your audience, so you can anticipate any counterarguments they might make and try to overcome them. Try these topics to persuade someone to come around to your point of view. ( Discover 60 more intriguing persuasive essay topics here. )

• Do you think homework should be required, optional, or not given at all?
• Everyone should be vegetarian or vegan.
• What animal makes the best pet?
• Visit an animal shelter, choose an animal that needs a home, and write an essay persuading someone to adopt that animal.
• Who is the world’s best athlete, present or past?
• Should little kids be allowed to play competitive sports?
• Are professional athletes/musicians/actors overpaid?
• The best music genre is …

• Is democracy the best form of government?
• Is capitalism the best form of economy?
• Students should/should not be able to use their phones during the school day.
• Should schools have dress codes?
• If I could change one school rule, it would be …
• Is year-round school a good idea?

A research essay is a classic high school assignment. These papers require deep research into primary source documents, with lots of supporting facts and evidence that’s properly cited. Research essays can be in any of the styles shown above. Here are some possible topics, across a variety of subjects.

• Which country’s style of government is best for the people who live there?
• Choose a country and analyze its development from founding to present day.
• Describe the causes and effects of a specific war.
• Formulate an ideal economic plan for our country.
• What scientific discovery has had the biggest impact on life today?

• Analyze the way mental health is viewed and treated in this country.
• Explore the ways systemic racism impacts people in all walks of life.
• Defend the importance of teaching music and the arts in public schools.
• Choose one animal from the endangered species list, and propose a realistic plan to protect it.

What are some of your favorite essay topics for high school? Come share your prompts on the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook .

Plus, check out the ultimate guide to student writing contests .

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• Education Essay

Essay on Education

Nelson Mandela rightly said, “Education is the most important weapon to change the world.” Education plays an important role in the development of an individual and making him a knowledgeable citizen. It is the education that makes an individual self-reliant, helps to suppress the social evils and contribute towards the development of the society and nation as a whole.

Education helps in unravelling the mystery of nature. It enables us to understand and improve the working of our society. It creates conditions for a better life. Education brings out the capabilities to fight injustice happening in society. Every individual has the right to education.

Introduction

Education is a significant tool that provides knowledge, skill, technique, information and enables people to know their rights and duties towards their family, society and the nation. You can expand your vision and outlook to see the world around us. It changes our perception of life. Education builds up the ability to explore new things to enhance your creativity. Your creativity is a tool to develop the nation.

Importance of Education

People still don't realise what role education and being educated plays in our lives and society. So, before making people aware of education and working for their access, it is very important to understand the need and importance of education. Education includes traditional learning methods that include theories and modern methods that include practical implementation of the subjects.

In schools, education is categorised into four stages, and each stage is important for each student:

Primary 

Secondary 

Senior secondary

Education can be classified into Various Forms:

Formal education: teaches us the academic part of any course or class, skills, or theory.

Non Formal education: We learn from our community, culture, nation-based programs, and the society that we live in

Informal education: We learn from our life lessons, experiences, other people, their experiences, nature, surroundings, etc.

Education empowers everyone. It is an important aspect that shapes the modern and industrialised world. People need education to be able to cope up with the advancements in this competitive world. Following are some areas where education is needed:

Removing Poverty: Education helps in eradicating poverty from our society.  An educated person can secure a good job and take care of all the basic needs and requirements of his family.

Safety and Security against Crime: A well-educated person cannot be easily duped or become a victim of any crime. They can develop the ability to stand against injustice. 

Increases Productivity: Educated people are more productive. With the help of knowledge and skills, they can explore new ideas. 

Confidence: A good education doesn’t mean to go to schools and colleges only. Education helps to become self-dependent and build great confidence within them so that they are able to accomplish difficult tasks.

Improved Standard of Life: On getting an education, quality of life gets improved. Education helps you to secure good jobs by which you can fulfil your dreams of buying a house or car or other luxury things. 

Women Empowerment: Education helps in empowering women. Women can voice out themselves in the society against the injustice done to them. They can be self-reliant and need not be dependent on anyone. Women empowerment will bring a lot of development in society as well as in the nation.

Upliftment of the Economically Weaker Section: Education is the most significant ingredient to change the world. Illiterate people suffer the hardships of discrimination, untouchability and injustice prevailing in the society. With the advancement of education, the weaker section can improve their quality of life. 

Communication: Communication is related to education. Good education helps to communicate better with others. It also improves our skills such as speech, body language, etc. 

Development of a nation: The countries that focus on educating their citizens and have a higher education level are considered more developed nations in every aspect of their lives.

  Individual growth: An educated individual always stands out in a crowd of uneducated people. They will be able to make better life decisions because with education comes knowledge. When an individual knows something, they will be able to understand things in a better manner.

 Independent: Education acts as a catalyst for a human being to be independent. If an individual is educated enough, they can manage their own life without being dependent on anybody.

  Success: Education helps in framing our mindset in a positive direction, and with this mindset, people can make their lives better. With education comes a degree, and with a degree comes a lot of opportunities. You just have to make a better choice for yourself, and everything will fall in place.

Talking particularly about India, education is a constitutional right of every citizen irrespective of caste, creed, race, religion, gender, etc. That’s the status given to education in India because educated people are always treated well and are well respected everywhere in the world.

Role of Education in Society

Education is the social institution through which the society provides its members with knowledge, facts, job skills and values. One of the most important roles of education is that it improves personal lives and helps society to run smoothly. As mentioned above, poverty can be eradicated and every individual can contribute towards the development of the country.

Education Creates a Better Society: An educated person is more likely to develop better moral and ethical values as compared to an uneducated person. Education brings equal opportunity for everyone and educated people will be able to create a better society. 

Education is the Backbone of Society: Education is an integral part of human society. Lack of education gives birth to numerous social problems like poor health, conflicts, and poor living standards. Education helps people overcome all problems by finding better solutions. 

Education Encourages Innovation and Creativity: Education leads to innovation. Innovation and creativity can only occur when skilled people know how to advance with different technologies. Educated people always can solve problems with the help of better techniques. 

Education Creates a Better Human Being: Education is the most powerful weapon by which the entire perspective of the world can be changed. Through education, a person can develop good moral values. It helps us to become a better person in life. 

Understanding the Responsibilities: As a social being, it becomes the responsibility of every individual to give something back to society and make it a better place for our next generation. An educated person is aware of his personal and social responsibilities.

Education helps in shaping the values of an individual. It helps individuals develop their moral values, humbleness, sympathy and empathy towards society, etc.

Students or any individual learn to express their viewpoints by reading, writing, learning. And these qualities or skills are taught with the help of education and nothing else.

Steps Taken to promote Education:

After discussing the importance of education, awareness is the next big step. People, especially those living in remote areas, should be aware and should have access to a better education system. The government has taken several steps for this purpose. It has started various initiatives to make education accessible to all and improve the quality of education for the betterment of every student. 

Some of the Prominent Steps:

The formation of the Right to Education Act, 2009 made education a fundamental right for every child belonging to 6-14 years.

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan

Adult education and national development scheme

Beti bachao, beti padhao

Midday meal scheme and many more.

Various other initiatives that the government has taken are Udaan, Saksham, Pragati, etc., to make education accessible to every part of the county.

Conclusion:

Education is the pathway for a nation’s progress. Education is the backbone of society. The government should take all measures to provide education to every individual of the country. This will bring equality among people and when people improvise their way of living, they become more responsible towards society.

The literacy rate of more developed nations is also high, and the literacy of every nation depends upon its education system. The government undoubtedly has made laws and formulated schemes, but implementing those schemes is a major task. 

The government, along with co-operation with the citizens, should make the society and nation a better place to live in. The growth of every nation depends upon the kind of population it has. A well-educated population will make a well-developed nation.

FAQs on Education Essay

1) Why is education important?

Education is important for the development of an individual. It is the most powerful weapon by which a person can contribute towards the development of the society and nation as a whole.

2) How is education a pathway to success?

Education provides job opportunities and also helps to expand your vision and change your outlook to see the world around us.

3) How can education help the economically backward people?

Uneducated or illiterate people do not have the ability to overcome hardships like discrimination, untouchability, and injustice. When these people get basic education, then they can become self-reliant and stand for their rights. With the advancement of education, they can improve their standard of living and poverty can be eradicated from the face of the Earth.

4) How are women empowered through education?

Education helps in empowering women. Women can voice out themselves in the society against the injustice done to them. They can be self-dependent. Women empowerment will bring a lot of development in society as well as in the nation.

5) What are the roles that education plays?

Education is vital in shaping the world and society. An educated society forms an educated nation. It is essential in creating a positive mindset and positive skills in an individual.

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The pandemic has had devastating impacts on learning. What will it take to help students catch up?

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, megan kuhfeld , megan kuhfeld senior research scientist - nwea jim soland , jim soland assistant professor, school of education and human development - university of virginia, affiliated research fellow - nwea karyn lewis , and karyn lewis director, center for school and student progress - nwea emily morton emily morton research scientist - nwea.

March 3, 2022

As we reach the two-year mark of the initial wave of pandemic-induced school shutdowns, academic normalcy remains out of reach for many students, educators, and parents. In addition to surging COVID-19 cases at the end of 2021, schools have faced severe staff shortages , high rates of absenteeism and quarantines , and rolling school closures . Furthermore, students and educators continue to struggle with mental health challenges , higher rates of violence and misbehavior , and concerns about lost instructional time .

As we outline in our new research study released in January, the cumulative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ academic achievement has been large. We tracked changes in math and reading test scores across the first two years of the pandemic using data from 5.4 million U.S. students in grades 3-8. We focused on test scores from immediately before the pandemic (fall 2019), following the initial onset (fall 2020), and more than one year into pandemic disruptions (fall 2021).

Average fall 2021 math test scores in grades 3-8 were 0.20-0.27 standard deviations (SDs) lower relative to same-grade peers in fall 2019, while reading test scores were 0.09-0.18 SDs lower. This is a sizable drop. For context, the math drops are significantly larger than estimated impacts from other large-scale school disruptions, such as after Hurricane Katrina—math scores dropped 0.17 SDs in one year for New Orleans evacuees .

Even more concerning, test-score gaps between students in low-poverty and high-poverty elementary schools grew by approximately 20% in math (corresponding to 0.20 SDs) and 15% in reading (0.13 SDs), primarily during the 2020-21 school year. Further, achievement tended to drop more between fall 2020 and 2021 than between fall 2019 and 2020 (both overall and differentially by school poverty), indicating that disruptions to learning have continued to negatively impact students well past the initial hits following the spring 2020 school closures.

These numbers are alarming and potentially demoralizing, especially given the heroic efforts of students to learn and educators to teach in incredibly trying times. From our perspective, these test-score drops in no way indicate that these students represent a “ lost generation ” or that we should give up hope. Most of us have never lived through a pandemic, and there is so much we don’t know about students’ capacity for resiliency in these circumstances and what a timeline for recovery will look like. Nor are we suggesting that teachers are somehow at fault given the achievement drops that occurred between 2020 and 2021; rather, educators had difficult jobs before the pandemic, and now are contending with huge new challenges, many outside their control.

Clearly, however, there’s work to do. School districts and states are currently making important decisions about which interventions and strategies to implement to mitigate the learning declines during the last two years. Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) investments from the American Rescue Plan provided nearly $200 billion to public schools to spend on COVID-19-related needs. Of that sum, $22 billion is dedicated specifically to addressing learning loss using “evidence-based interventions” focused on the “ disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underrepresented student subgroups. ” Reviews of district and state spending plans (see Future Ed , EduRecoveryHub , and RAND’s American School District Panel for more details) indicate that districts are spending their ESSER dollars designated for academic recovery on a wide variety of strategies, with summer learning, tutoring, after-school programs, and extended school-day and school-year initiatives rising to the top.

Comparing the negative impacts from learning disruptions to the positive impacts from interventions

To help contextualize the magnitude of the impacts of COVID-19, we situate test-score drops during the pandemic relative to the test-score gains associated with common interventions being employed by districts as part of pandemic recovery efforts. If we assume that such interventions will continue to be as successful in a COVID-19 school environment, can we expect that these strategies will be effective enough to help students catch up? To answer this question, we draw from recent reviews of research on high-dosage tutoring , summer learning programs , reductions in class size , and extending the school day (specifically for literacy instruction) . We report effect sizes for each intervention specific to a grade span and subject wherever possible (e.g., tutoring has been found to have larger effects in elementary math than in reading).

Figure 1 shows the standardized drops in math test scores between students testing in fall 2019 and fall 2021 (separately by elementary and middle school grades) relative to the average effect size of various educational interventions. The average effect size for math tutoring matches or exceeds the average COVID-19 score drop in math. Research on tutoring indicates that it often works best in younger grades, and when provided by a teacher rather than, say, a parent. Further, some of the tutoring programs that produce the biggest effects can be quite intensive (and likely expensive), including having full-time tutors supporting all students (not just those needing remediation) in one-on-one settings during the school day. Meanwhile, the average effect of reducing class size is negative but not significant, with high variability in the impact across different studies. Summer programs in math have been found to be effective (average effect size of .10 SDs), though these programs in isolation likely would not eliminate the COVID-19 test-score drops.

Figure 1: Math COVID-19 test-score drops compared to the effect sizes of various educational interventions

Source: COVID-19 score drops are pulled from Kuhfeld et al. (2022) Table 5; reduction-in-class-size results are from pg. 10 of Figles et al. (2018) Table 2; summer program results are pulled from Lynch et al (2021) Table 2; and tutoring estimates are pulled from Nictow et al (2020) Table 3B. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals are shown with vertical lines on each bar.

Notes: Kuhfeld et al. and Nictow et al. reported effect sizes separately by grade span; Figles et al. and Lynch et al. report an overall effect size across elementary and middle grades. We were unable to find a rigorous study that reported effect sizes for extending the school day/year on math performance. Nictow et al. and Kraft & Falken (2021) also note large variations in tutoring effects depending on the type of tutor, with larger effects for teacher and paraprofessional tutoring programs than for nonprofessional and parent tutoring. Class-size reductions included in the Figles meta-analysis ranged from a minimum of one to minimum of eight students per class.

Figure 2 displays a similar comparison using effect sizes from reading interventions. The average effect of tutoring programs on reading achievement is larger than the effects found for the other interventions, though summer reading programs and class size reduction both produced average effect sizes in the ballpark of the COVID-19 reading score drops.

Figure 2: Reading COVID-19 test-score drops compared to the effect sizes of various educational interventions

Source: COVID-19 score drops are pulled from Kuhfeld et al. (2022) Table 5; extended-school-day results are from Figlio et al. (2018) Table 2; reduction-in-class-size results are from pg. 10 of Figles et al. (2018) ; summer program results are pulled from Kim & Quinn (2013) Table 3; and tutoring estimates are pulled from Nictow et al (2020) Table 3B. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals are shown with vertical lines on each bar.

Notes: While Kuhfeld et al. and Nictow et al. reported effect sizes separately by grade span, Figlio et al. and Kim & Quinn report an overall effect size across elementary and middle grades. Class-size reductions included in the Figles meta-analysis ranged from a minimum of one to minimum of eight students per class.

There are some limitations of drawing on research conducted prior to the pandemic to understand our ability to address the COVID-19 test-score drops. First, these studies were conducted under conditions that are very different from what schools currently face, and it is an open question whether the effectiveness of these interventions during the pandemic will be as consistent as they were before the pandemic. Second, we have little evidence and guidance about the efficacy of these interventions at the unprecedented scale that they are now being considered. For example, many school districts are expanding summer learning programs, but school districts have struggled to find staff interested in teaching summer school to meet the increased demand. Finally, given the widening test-score gaps between low- and high-poverty schools, it’s uncertain whether these interventions can actually combat the range of new challenges educators are facing in order to narrow these gaps. That is, students could catch up overall, yet the pandemic might still have lasting, negative effects on educational equality in this country.

Given that the current initiatives are unlikely to be implemented consistently across (and sometimes within) districts, timely feedback on the effects of initiatives and any needed adjustments will be crucial to districts’ success. The Road to COVID Recovery project and the National Student Support Accelerator are two such large-scale evaluation studies that aim to produce this type of evidence while providing resources for districts to track and evaluate their own programming. Additionally, a growing number of resources have been produced with recommendations on how to best implement recovery programs, including scaling up tutoring , summer learning programs , and expanded learning time .

Ultimately, there is much work to be done, and the challenges for students, educators, and parents are considerable. But this may be a moment when decades of educational reform, intervention, and research pay off. Relying on what we have learned could show the way forward.

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• Essay on Importance of Education

Importance of Education Essay

Education is one of the key components for an individual’s success. It has the ability to shape one’s life in the right direction. Education is a process of imparting or acquiring knowledge, and developing the powers of reasoning and judgement. It prepares growing children intellectually for a life with more mature understanding and sensitivity to issues surrounding them. It improves not only the personal life of the people but also their community. Thus, one cannot neglect the significance of Education in life and society. Here, we have provided an essay on the Importance of Education. Students can use this essay to prepare for their English exam or as a speech to participate in the school competition.

Importance of Education

The importance of education in life is immense. It facilitates quality learning for people throughout their life. It inculcates knowledge, belief, skill, values and moral habits. It improves the way of living and raises the social and economic status of individuals. Education makes life better and more peaceful. It transforms the personality of individuals and makes them feel confident.

Well said by Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon to change the world”. To elaborate, it is the foundation of the society which brings economic wealth, social prosperity and political stability. It gives power to people to put their views and showcase their real potential. It strengthens democracy by providing citizens with the tools to participate in the governance process. It acts as an integrative force to foster social cohesion and national identity.

In India, education is a constitutional right of every citizen. So, people of any age group, religion, caste, creed and region are free to receive education. An educated person is respected everywhere and well-treated in society. As a kid, every child dreams of being a doctor, lawyer, engineer, actor, sportsperson, etc. These dreams can come true through education. So, investment in education gives the best return. Well-educated people have more opportunities to get a better job which makes them feel satisfied.

In schools, education is divided into different levels, i.e., preschool, primary, secondary and senior secondary. School education comprises traditional learning which provides students with theoretical knowledge. However, now various efforts are being made to establish inbuilt application-based learning by adding numerous experiments, practicals and extracurricular activities to the school curriculum. Students learn to read, write and represent their viewpoints in front of others. Also, in this era of digital Education, anyone can easily access information online at their fingertips. They can learn new skills and enhance their knowledge.

Steps Taken By Government To Promote Education

Education is evidently an important aspect that no government can ignore in order to ensure the equitable development of a nation. Unfortunately, some children still do not have access to education. The Government has thereby taken initiatives to improve education quality and made it accessible to everyone, especially the poor people.

The Government passed the Right to Education Act 2009 (RTE Act 2009) on 4 August 2009. This Act came into effect on 1 April 2010, following which education has become the fundamental right of every child in India. It provides free and compulsory elementary education to children of the age group of 6-14 years in a neighbourhood school within 1 km, up to Class 8 in India. On similar lines, there are other schemes launched by the government, such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan , Mid-Day Meal , Adult Education and Skill Development Scheme, National Means cum Merit Scholarship Scheme, National Program for Education of Girls at Elementary Education, Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya, Scheme for Infrastructure Development in Minority Institutions, Beti Bachao , Beti Padhao, etc.

For our country’s growth, we require a well-educated population equipped with the relevant knowledge, attitude and skills. This can be achieved by spreading awareness about the importance of Education in rural areas. There is a famous saying that “If we feed one person, we will eliminate his hunger for only one time. But, if we educate a person, we will change his entire life”. Henceforth he will become capable of earning a livelihood by himself.

This essay on the Importance of Education must have helped students to improve their writing section for the English exam. They can also practice essays on other topics by visiting the CBSE Essay page. Keep learning and stay tuned with BYJU’S for the latest updates on CBSE/ICSE/State Board/Competitive Exams. Also, download the BYJU’S App for interactive study videos.

Frequently Asked Questions on Education Essay

How can the literacy rate in india be increased.

People in rural areas must be informed about the importance of providing education to their children. Also, with the COVID-19 situation, the government should take steps by providing laptops/phones for children to follow online classes.

Are girl children still denied their right to get educated?

Although awareness has now improved, there are still many villages in India where girl children are not provided with proper education or allowed to enrol themselves in schools. This mentality has to change for the betterment of the society.

Teaching subjects/academics alone is enough, or should students be introduced to other forms of educational activities too?

Extracurricular activities, moral value education, etc., are also as important as regular academic teachings.

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Intergenerational Impacts of Secondary Education: Experimental Evidence from Ghana

We provide experimental evidence on the intergenerational impacts of secondary education subsidies in a low-income context, leveraging a randomized controlled trial and 15-year longitudinal follow-up. For young women, receiving a scholarship for secondary school delays childbearing and marriage, and reduces unwanted pregnancies. Female scholarship recipients are more likely to marry a partner with tertiary education and their children have better early childhood development outcomes. In particular, we document a 45% reduction in under-three mortality as well as cognitive development gains of 0.25 standard deviations of test scores once children are of school age. The primary mechanism seems to be that more-educated caregivers have the knowledge and skills to safeguard their children’s health and stimulate their cognitive development. In contrast, we find no evidence of a positive impact for the children of male scholarship recipients, who tend to marry less educated partners. Together, these results suggest a key role for maternal education in child outcomes. We also estimate the cost-benefit ratio for secondary school scholarships and find that the impact on child survival alone is sufficient to make them a highly cost-effective investment.

The funding for this study was provided by the British Academy, the JPAL Post-Primary Education Initiative, and USAID-DIV. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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A Review of the Academic and Psychological Impact of the Transition to Secondary Education

Danielle evans.

1 School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom

Giulia A. Borriello

2 Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States

Andy P. Field

The transition from primary to secondary education is one of the most stressful events in a young person’s life ( Zeedyk et al., 2003 ) and can have a negative impact on psychological well-being and academic achievement. One explanation for these negative impacts is that the transition coincides with early adolescence, a period during which certain psychological disorders (i.e., anxiety disorders) become more salient ( Kessler et al., 2005 ) and marked social, biological, and psychological development occurs ( Anderson et al., 2000 ). This review evaluates the existing literature on the psychological and academic impacts of the transition to secondary education on young adolescents. We examine the factors that plausibly increase or mitigate the risk of developing mental health issues and/or a decline in academic performance during the transition to secondary education. We also review the interplay between psychological health and academic achievement across and beyond the transition. We conclude with a summary of what schools and parents can learn from these findings to support children in a successful transition into secondary education.

Introduction

The transition from primary to secondary education is a normative event for most children around the world, which typically occurs when children are early adolescents (mostly between the ages of 10–14). Although most students change school at some point during their education, systems around the world vary significantly. For example, in England, children transition in Year 6 at age 11, whereas in the United States (US), the age and grade of transition differs per school and per state, with children transitioning between the ages of 10 and 14 to a middle or high school (5th and 8th grade, respectively). While it is the norm to transition, it is possible that children may also attend schools in which they complete their education in one institution, though these are uncommon in the United Kingdom. To avoid switching between locale-specific terms, for the entirety of this review, primary education refers to schooling before children transition to a middle school, high-school (United Kingdom), secondary school, or a gymnasium around the ages of 10–14, while secondary education refers to schooling after this transition.

Around two in five students fail to reach their expected progress following the transition to secondary education ( Galton et al., 1999 ), with around 40% of students making no progress in English and reading (42 and 38%, respectively) and 34% making no progress in maths from Year 6 (age 10–11) to Year 7 (age 11–12) ( Galton et al., 1999 ). In the United Kingdom, Ofsted (2002) concluded there was limited preparation available for the differences in teaching and learning children face after the transition.

The transition to secondary education has received increased interest from researchers in recent years, with many researchers regarding the change as one of the most stressful events young adolescents will experience ( Chung et al., 1998 ; Coelho and Romão, 2016 ). Children report additional concerns during this time, including fear of bullies, being lost, peer relationship worries, and anxiety over coping with an increased workload ( Zeedyk et al., 2003 ). Additionally, the transition to secondary education can directly impact educational attainment, with a reported interruption in students’ academic growth during the transition year ( Akos et al., 2015 ).

Figure ​ Figure1 1 shows an attempt to organize the various constructs that, based on research, contribute to a successful transition to secondary education. The first consideration is what is deemed a “successful” transition. Although the adjustment to secondary education can be measured in various ways, most researchers regard it to encompass social, academic, and emotional adaptation ( Duchesne et al., 2012 ). Hall and DiPerna (2017) particularly note the importance of relationships with peers, developing academic abilities, and a stable state of mental health as vital components of adjusting to secondary education. These components are not independent. Where there are declines in emotional well-being, there are also declines in peer relationship quality, and academic performance, though causality has yet to be established (e.g., Woodward and Fergusson, 2000 ; Reijntjes et al., 2010 ; Mundy et al., 2017 ; Rahman et al., 2018 ). Although many students adapt with relatively few issues, others find the transition impacts one, two, or all of these domains. It has been argued that children who express more worries prior to the transition are less likely to be well-adjusted in all three of these areas ( Duchesne et al., 2012 ).

Summary of the key constructs influencing a successful transition to secondary education.

In terms of what predicts a successful transition, Figure ​ Figure1 1 organizes the key constructs into higher-order categories of contextual, environment-, and individual-level constructs. Contextual constructs are variables that could plausibly moderate any of the relationships between the environmental-level constructs, individual-level constructs and a successful transition. The contextual constructs could all plausibly have a direct impact on whether the transition is successful too. They have in common that they are either fixed during transition (e.g., pre-transition academic attainment/emotional health, biological sex, whether we consider the model for a specific subject area such as maths), likely not to change (e.g., SES), or the effect of change is likely to be fixed at the group level (for example, we might consider the effects of puberty to be somewhat similar for all boys). The environment- and individual-level constructs are ones that are highly likely to change heterogeneously during transition to secondary education (for example, there is likely to be considerable variability in how dramatically the school environment changes for different children). They differ, self-evidently, in whether they relate to the child’s environment or his/her internal schema.

Within these categories, we have pulled together related measures from the literature into superordinate constructs. For example, researchers have looked at class size, teacher expectations, and academic goal orientation as predictors of a successful transition, all of which can logically be grouped as part of the school environment. Similarly, a child’s set of beliefs about their social environment and her/his emotional responses to them (which we have labeled social schema ) encompasses peer relations, teacher relations, affect to school (or belongingness), and social support more generally. The constructs identified are not exhaustive or definitive, they are merely a convenient way to organize the existing literature for the purpose of this review.

Within the environment-level constructs, most of the literature relates to changes in the child’s school or home environment. The overall school environment typically changes during the transition to secondary education. Children often move from a smaller, personal primary school where they are taught by a single teacher in, primarily, a single classroom, to a larger, more complex, impersonal secondary school where they attend lessons in different locations with different teachers, often with larger class sizes. Secondary school buildings tend to be larger, and individuals are often required to travel further afield, often on public transport.

Within the individual-level constructs, the literature focuses on the belief systems in the child about their social position, their learning, and their academic self-concept. For example, Cantin and Boivin (2004) report a decrease in friendship network size following the transition, meaning children have fewer friends post-transition. Similarly, Martínez et al. (2011) note a decline in both general social support and the support given by teachers at this time. These findings are represented by social schema in Figure ​ Figure1 1 .

The constructs identified are, of course, not independent. The environment-level constructs could plausibly have a direct effect on a successful school transition, but also an indirect effect by influencing any one of the individual-level constructs. For example, the classroom goal structure alters post-transition with higher importance placed on performance goals, where the focus is on demonstrating ability relative to others, as opposed to mastery goals, where the focus is on increasing competence relative to self-set standards ( Madjar et al., 2018 ). This shift in goals in turn negatively impacts social schema such as school belongingness/engagement ( Madjar and Chohat, 2017 ). Similarly, decreased emotional support in the classroom has been reported following the transition ( Shell et al., 2014 ), which is likely to impact social schema. The individual-level constructs are also likely to influence each other: social and learning schemas are both likely to influence academic self-concept and plausibly each other.

We aim to evaluate the academic and psychological impact of the secondary education transition, while examining risk and protective factors that may amplify or lessen these effects. Based on Hall and DiPerna’s (2017) definition, we primarily review the evidence concerning emotional well-being and academic performance. Because so little is known about the causal relationships between the identified constructs we believe it is misleading (not to mention messy) to make individual connections in Figure ​ Figure1 1 between the various constructs that might imply causality. Instead, this review will highlight the relationships between the constructs in the Figure ​ Figure1 1 that have been observed, but there may be other connections that, as yet, have not been explored empirically.

The Effects of the Transition to Secondary Education on Academic Achievement

The first indicator of a successful transition to secondary education is academic achievement ( Figure ​ Figure1 1 ). Academic achievement is essential for individual well-being across the lifespan ( Gottfredson, 2004 ; Fiscella and Kitzman, 2009 ). The primary-to-secondary transition is a critical period of development in which many children are particularly vulnerable to lower levels of academic achievement. Low academic achievement during early adolescence is linked with various negative consequences, including early pregnancy and higher delinquency rates ( Kasen et al., 1998 ; Freudenberg and Ruglis, 2007 ; Henry et al., 2012 ). Moreover, low achievement during this period tends to be succeeded by school dropout and low occupational achievement and income across the lifespan ( Day and Newburger, 2002 ). In this section, we summarize research that has examined the impacts of the primary-to-secondary transition on academic-related outcomes in early adolescence.

A number of United States studies indicate that the transition from primary to secondary education has a negative impact on student grade point averages (GPA) and academic achievement ( Felner et al., 1981 ; Simmons et al., 1991 ; Seidman et al., 1994 ; Alspaugh and Harting, 1995 ; Gutman and Midgley, 2000 ; Dotterer et al., 2009 ). Illustratively, United States students who moved from a primary to a secondary school experienced a decline in grades following the transition, unlike students who were in the same grade but had not transitioned to secondary education ( Felner et al., 1981 ). Alspaugh (1998) also found that U.S. children experience lower academic achievement after transitioning from primary school to secondary school. Moreover, children who transitioned into secondary education where peers attended a variety of primary schools experienced lower levels of achievement than children who transitioned into secondary education with peers who attended the same primary school. Results from achievement at the high school level indicated that U.S. children who transitioned multiple times, from primary to secondary school and from secondary school to high school, experienced higher declines in achievement than those who had fewer school transitions. Alspaugh’s (1998) work is in line with other evidence ( Rice, 2001 ) suggesting that the transition from primary to secondary education can have long-term negative consequences on academic outcomes.

Environment-Level Constructs

With respect to the environment-level constructs in Figure ​ Figure1 1 , developmental psychologists have attempted to understand why and how the transition to secondary education can negatively affect academic achievement. The stage-environment fit model ( Eccles et al., 1993 ) suggests that a mismatch between children’s developmental needs at the time of the transition and the social context of secondary schools contributes to a decline in academic outcomes following the transition.

Several aspects of the secondary education school environment that differ from primary education may have a particular effect on academic achievement following the transition; these include new academic environments (e.g., new, larger schools and classrooms) and different structural demands (e.g., switching classrooms, teachers, and classroom materials for each subject throughout the day). Children must also forge new student-teacher relationships and adjust to changes in teacher expectations and declines in student autonomy.

Although teachers have more control over secondary education classrooms, academic standards tend to be higher in secondary education than in primary, and require more intrinsic motivation from adolescents ( Harter et al., 1992 ). Compared to primary education, secondary education classes place an increased emphasis on grades and teachers’ academic expectations of students tend to be higher ( Eccles and Midgley, 1989 ; Wigfield et al., 1991 ). Moreover, children may perceive classroom goals differently in primary and secondary education. Cross-sectional work indicates that in primary education settings, students report being more task oriented , or engaged in academic work for the sake of learning, whereas in secondary education settings children report being more performance oriented , or engaged in academic work for the sake of demonstrating ability ( Anderman and Midgley, 1997 ). A longitudinal study found that following a transition from primary to secondary education, children perceived classroom climates to focus more on competence and less on learning ( Anderman and Midgley, 1997 ). These changes subsequently influence individual-level constructs such as adolescents’ academic self-concept, interest and engagement (learning schema), and affect toward school (social schema), as discussed in the following sections.

Individual-Level Constructs

Academic self-concept.

Academic self-concept, or self-perceptions regarding academic topics and learning, has various components, including a cognitive component specific to academic competence and an affective-motivational component ( Marsh et al., 1991 ; Arens et al., 2013a ). Studies indicate that academic self-concept decreases between the end of primary and the beginning of secondary education ( Wigfield et al., 1991 ; Arens et al., 2013a ). For example, Coelho et al. (2017) found decreases in students’ academic self-concept from their last year in primary education to the end of their first year in secondary education, along with lower levels of self-esteem. Although this sample included Portuguese children who transitioned to secondary education 2 years earlier than students in the United Kingdom or the U.S. typically do, these findings are consistent with studies examining children who transition to secondary education at a later age ( Wigfield et al., 1991 ). In addition, Seidman et al. (1994) found that students’ academic self-perceptions declined even after adjusting for student age, grade level, and ability level. Together, these findings provide evidence that the transition process itself (i.e., the environment) as well as individual factors (e.g., developmental changes), likely play a role in changing children’s academic self-concept.

However, there is inconsistency in the literature with not all studies finding a decline in perceived academic competence after the transition to secondary education. For example, Harter et al. (1992) found no significant differences between children’s perceptions of scholastic competence following the transition to secondary education compared to children who did not transition. There are also studies demonstrating increases , not decreases, in academic self-efficacy ( Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons, 1990 ; Midgley et al., 1995 ). The variance in observed changes in perceptions of academic competence across the transition period must be explained by other factors, including how much children value a particular academic domain and their interest in it. Moreover, we might expect changes in academic self-concept to differ by discipline. For example, Wigfield et al. (1991) found significant declines in children’s perceived competence in English following the transition to secondary education, but only marginal declines in mathematics. In the Section “Learning Schema,” we discuss student attitudes and interest in a select few academic domains.

Learning Schema

Students tend to hold more negative attitudes toward certain academic domains including mathematics and science, compared to others, and to academic achievement, more broadly ( Eccles et al., 1984 ). Student self-perceptions about their own abilities in and attitudes toward maths and science tend to decrease as children progress in school, and especially during the transition to secondary education ( Eccles et al., 1984 ; Midgley et al., 1989a ). For example, a cross-sectional study by Barth et al. (2011) found that children’s attitudes toward and self-efficacy in mathematics and science declined during the transition. Similarly, student interest in mathematics and science were lower after, rather than prior to, the transition to secondary education. Furthermore, Australian students reported less involvement in the classroom and declining enjoyment and attitudes toward maths following the transition relative to those yet to make the move over to secondary education ( Deieso and Fraser, 2018 ).

Differences in learning experiences surrounding science and mathematics before and after the primary-to-secondary transition may also influence changes in students’ academic attitudes and interests. Prior to the transition, for example, students do not have a choice in the type of science or mathematics courses in which they enroll and instruction in these arenas is standardized across students. Following the transition to secondary education, students have more agency in the number and type of mathematics and science courses they choose. Moreover, student ability in these domains becomes more salient, and students tend to get grouped into courses with students who have similar abilities to their own. Moreover, as children progress through school, teacher support decreases. Barth et al. (2011) investigated whether the role of teaching effectiveness and student perceptions of positive teaching strategies (i.e., teacher support, engaging instruction) contributed to decreases in student interest and attitudes toward maths and science. Findings indicated that effective teaching and student perceptions of positive teaching strategies strongly predicted changes in student interest and self-efficacy in mathematics and science, particularly during the transition to secondary education. Thus, one way that negative attitudes toward and low self-efficacy and interest in mathematics and science across the transition period may be counteracted is via teacher support.

The transition to secondary education also affects engagement and perceived control in learning. A study by Rudolph et al. (2001) examined whether student perceptions of control over their academic outcomes as well as student investments in academic success influenced their ability to successfully transition from primary to secondary education. The researchers expected to find that high perceptions of control and personal investment in academic success would encourage academic engagement and ultimately, academic achievement. Conversely, they expected that low levels of control and investment would promote academic disengagement and hinder academic achievement. Results indicated that, compared to students who did not transition from primary to secondary education, students who experienced a transition and reported lower levels of perceptions of control and personal investment in school also reported higher levels of stress and depressive symptoms. The authors suggest that students with lower levels of perceived control over and personal investment in academic pursuits are more likely to become disengaged from school and to find it easier to feel overwhelmed or particularly sensitive to any school-related issues.

Social Schema

Student feelings of “belongingness” at school and how much they enjoy school may also be impacted by school transitions and affect child achievement. Because intervention research suggests that a positive school climate can benefit children’s mental health and academic outcomes, several studies have investigated whether changes in the school climate between primary and secondary education contributes to declines in academic outcomes post-transition ( Battistich et al., 2004 ). Illustratively, Riglin et al. (2013) examined bidirectional associations between young adolescents’ ( M age = 11.78 years) affect toward school and their academic achievement using a prospective, longitudinal design. They found reciprocal associations between school liking and academic achievement at the beginning and end of the first year of secondary education. However, after controlling for conduct problems, degree of liking school predicted later academic achievement, but early achievement no longer predicted later school liking. These findings support the notion that affect toward school and a sense of belonging to school are linked with academic achievement ( Resnick et al., 1997 ; Roeser et al., 2000 ; McLaughlin and Clarke, 2010 ). However, some studies have not found evidence to suggest that children’s perceptions of the school climate differ prior to and following the school transition ( Thornburg and Glider, 1984 ; Fenzel and Blyth, 1986 ; Hirsch and Rapkin, 1987 ; Crockett et al., 1989 ; Harter et al., 1992 ), and other studies report positive child perceptions of the school climate post-transition ( Schulenberg et al., 1984 ; Nottelmann, 1987 ; Berndt and Mekos, 1995 ). These findings indicate a need for more research to investigate links between the school climate before and after the primary-to-secondary education transition and its effects on academic achievement in early adolescence and beyond.

Interplay Between Individual-Level Constructs

It is important to understand the interplay between academic achievement, social schema, learning schema, and academic self-concept because doing so provides clear target areas to help children to maintain academic achievement across the transition to secondary education. The way that students cope with changes in academic achievement after the transition may have long-term consequences for future achievement. If initial decreases in grades or achievement post-transition leads some students to alter their academic self-concept, they may become more disengaged with school and have more negative feelings toward school, or increased feelings of disconnectedness. In turn, teachers may interact with students in a more negative way and these effects can snowball and lead to future decreases in student achievement or engagement ( Eccles et al., 1993 ; Fenzel, 2000 ). Conversely, it is also possible that for students with more resources and personal investments in learning, initial declines in grades following the transition may motivate them to become more engaged at school and work harder to bring up their grades. Thus, the ability of a young adolescent to continue doing well academically following a school transition is likely to depend on both the interplay between the individual-level factors and the environment-level factors that influence them.

Contextual Variables

So far, we have reviewed the environment- and individual-level factors affecting the transition from primary to secondary education. However, a range of contextual variables have been identified as predictors of academic performance across the transition to secondary education. For example, pubertal status has been linked to changes in academic self-concept and self-representation, both of which are important for academic achievement ( Schaffhuser et al., 2017 ). This section summarizes what we know about some of the contextual variables identified in Figure ​ Figure1 1 .

Few studies examining the school transition have reported consistent evidence of gender differences impacting future academic outcomes ( Wigfield et al., 1991 ; Harter et al., 1992 ; Seidman et al., 1994 ). For example, Seidman et al. (1994) found that children’s grades declined following the transition regardless of gender. Studies examining motivation, attitudes toward, and self-concepts in specific academic domains have found that boys tend to have more positive attitudes toward and higher self-concepts in maths than girls, whereas girls tend to have more positive attitudes toward and higher self-concept in English than boys ( Eccles et al., 1984 ; Marsh, 1989 ). However, research findings regarding effects of gender on self-concepts and attitudes toward academic achievement, and how these characteristics vary by gender across the transition period, are inconsistent.

Cognitive and Emotional Traits

Studies have reported a number of cognitive or emotional traits that influenced findings regarding the school transition and academic outcomes ( Petrides et al., 2004 ). For example, a longitudinal study examined the development of self-control during early adolescence, as children transitioned from primary to secondary education, and found that students with higher levels of self-control adjusted better following a school transition, receiving higher grades in English, maths, and science courses ( Ng-Knight et al., 2016 ).

Several studies suggest that how well children adapt to a new school environment and perform academically may depend on ability level in academic domains prior to a transition. For example, Wigfield et al. (1991) examined students’ academic self-concept in mathematics prior to and following a secondary education transition, and found that children’s mathematics self-concept following a school transition varied by level of mathematics ability. For students with high mathematics ability, mathematics self-concepts declined over time following the transition, while students with low mathematics ability experienced slight increases in their mathematics self-concepts following the transition. Other studies have also reported that academic ability level can help explain effects of school transitions on young adolescents’ academic-related outcomes ( Midgley et al., 1989a , b ; Anderman, 1998 ). For example, in a longitudinal study ( Midgley et al., 1989a ) teacher influences on student perceptions of the importance of mathematics before and after the secondary transition depended on student mathematics achievement. Results indicated that, compared to high achieving students, low achieving students had steeper declines in perceptions of mathematics importance if they switched from more supportive teachers before the transition to less supportive teachers following the transition.

With respect to emotional traits, Qualter et al. (2007) found that compared to students with below average emotional intelligence, those with average or higher levels of emotional intelligence received better grades in school, and had fewer teacher concerns regarding effort following the transition to secondary education (age 11–12).

SES and Ethnicity

Because youth of lower socioeconomic status (SES) tend to have lower academic achievement than higher SES youth ( McLoyd, 1998 ), it is possible that the primary-to-secondary education transition is especially stressful for this group of children. Moreover, because far more ethnic/racial minorities tend to live in poverty ( Brooks-Gunn et al., 1996 ), it is also pertinent to consider how the transition may impact ethnic and racial minorities’ academic achievement. Illustratively, Simmons et al. (1991) found that grades of African American students were extremely low following the secondary education transition, even though all students grades declined. Serbin et al. (2013) investigated academic achievement across the secondary transition in an “at risk” sample of children from lower income families. Findings indicated that family resources and child gender mattered: children from families with fewer resources had lower achievement than those from families with more resources following the transition, and girls had higher grades than boys following the transition. Moreover, multiple mediation analyses demonstrated that the link between gender and achievement was mediated by children’s social and academic skills (i.e., spelling), as well as the degree of support they received from parents prior to the transition. Thus, social skills, academic skills, and support from parents prior to the transition contributed to differences in boys’ and girls’ achievement following the transition into secondary education. Future work should focus on prevention and intervention efforts for populations of children that may especially need help to navigate the secondary education transition and to excel in school.

The Effects of the Transition to Secondary Education on Emotional Health

The second key indicator of a successful transition to secondary education in Figure ​ Figure1 1 is emotional health. Adolescence is a significant period for the development of mental health disorders with symptoms often increasing during this time (e.g., Kessler et al., 2005 ). A report by the Office for National Statistics states the prevalence of mental health disorders to be 12% in children aged 11–16, compared to 8% of those aged 5–10 (see Green et al., 2005 ). The Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Well-Being supports this figure reporting that at least 14% of adolescents younger than 18 were diagnosable with a mental disorder ( Sawyer et al., 2001 ). Given the high frequency of disorders within this age range, it seems likely that the primary-to-secondary education transition could contribute to mental health issues among young adolescents. In this section, we review this possibility.

What Do We Mean by Emotional Health?

If we consider emotional health in terms of constructs identified by mental health practitioners ( APA, 2017a ), then there are broadly two categories of symptom clusters to consider: symptoms that are largely internal to the person (manifest in psychological constructs such as anxiety and depression) and those that are external to the person (manifest in constructs such as conduct problems and attention-deficit and hyperactivity). Before looking at predictors of these symptoms related to the transition to secondary education, we will review these symptom clusters.

Internalizing Symptoms

One of the most common childhood disorders is anxiety. Anxiety disorders can take many forms and are generally characterized as feelings of tension and worrisome thoughts as well as physiological changes including an increased heart rate, increased perspiration and trembling among others ( APA, 2017a ). Anxiety is reported to be the earliest disorder to emerge in childhood, with 50% of anxiety disorders beginning by age 6 in affected adolescents ( Merikangas et al., 2010 ). Additionally, when averaged across all subtypes of anxiety disorders, the median age of onset is 11 years ( Kessler et al., 2005 ). Furthermore, it is one of the most common disorders faced by children; one meta-analysis of 41 studies spanning 27 countries conducted between 1985 and 2012 estimated the worldwide prevalence of any anxiety disorder to be 6.5% ( Polanczyk et al., 2015 ). Moreover, the lifetime prevalence of any anxiety disorder appears to be a staggering 31.9% ( Merikangas et al., 2010 ). Childhood anxiety also has a higher prevalence than depression, and is diagnosed more frequently than behavioral issues such as conduct disorder ( Cartwright-Hatton et al., 2006 ).

Most anxiety disorders are already established by early adolescence ( Kessler et al., 2005 ) with little change in frequency from age 13/14 up to age 17/18 ( Merikangas et al., 2010 ). The transition to secondary education typically occurs just before this period of a child’s life and is arguably particularly important in this process. For example, students experiencing greater worries concerning the school environment and relationships over the transition typically have heightened anxiety symptoms ( Arowosafe and Irvin, 1992 ; Harter et al., 1992 ; Lucey and Reay, 2000 ; Akos and Galassi, 2004 ). Greater school transition concerns both prior to and following the move have been associated with increased anxiety ( Rice et al., 2011 ), though research to date has been somewhat sparse and inconsistent.

A longitudinal study of U.S. schoolchildren aged 11–13, showed a decrease in anxiety symptoms following the move to secondary education ( Grills-Taquechel et al., 2010 ). This decrease in social anxiety was significant only in males. Furthermore, anxiety symptoms were predicted by global self-worth and social acceptance, with higher levels of both predicting greater decreases in anxiety, with males again showing greater declines. This finding suggests the transition could be particularly beneficial for male students in reducing their anxiety. One reason proposed to explain this gender difference is that females tend to participate in “relational” forms of bullying such as gossiping, spreading rumors, and excluding peers ( Crick and Grotpeter, 1995 ; Murray-Close et al., 2007 ). This may be an underlying mechanism of why girls experience greater social anxiety compared to boys, given females place greater value on close friendships, and greater fear of rejection and the loss of relationships (for a review, see Rose and Rudolph, 2006 ). Additionally, Grills-Taquechel et al. (2010) reported lessened impact of the transition on individuals with high self-worth and those who felt more socially accepted by their peers. Meanwhile, there also appears to be links between anxiety, stress, and the transition. Zandstra et al. (2015) reported a negative transition experience was associated with declines in mental health well-being, evident only in individuals with high awakening cortisol, a hormone important for stress reactivity. This association suggests that some individuals may be predisposed to greater emotional responses following a negative event such as the secondary education transition. This may help to explain why some individuals transition successfully, while others do not.

In a Canadian cohort of 11-year-old pupils, Duchesne et al. (2009) found that anxiety predicted both academic and teacher worries preceding the transition to middle school. Further analysis suggests girls perceived themselves as being more anxious and also reported greater worries about meeting academic demands and establishing relationships with teachers. However, attachment predicted anxiety levels, with individuals reporting more ‘secure’ attachments showing lower anxiety levels. Alternatively, another study of over 200 English schoolchildren (age 11) found similar levels of anxiety both at the start of secondary education and at the end of their first year ( Riglin et al., 2013 ). There were further gender differences with females experiencing higher general anxiety and school anxiety, greater school concerns, and increased school engagement compared to males, whereas, conduct disorder was higher in males than females. However, there were no measures prior to the transition in this study (e.g., in Year 6) making it impossible to draw conclusions about the effect of the transition.

Where evidence is inconsistent concerning the emergence of general anxiety following the transition to secondary education, there are links between the changeover and the development of one domain-specific type of anxiety: maths anxiety. Maths anxiety is often defined as feelings of tension, apprehension, or fear that may interfere with maths performance ( Ashcraft, 2002 ). Maths anxiety has been found to increase at the time of the changeover for students that transitioned to a new secondary school compared to those that did not, and increased especially in females and high-achievers ( Madjar et al., 2016 ). Their analysis suggests there is a significant increase in maths anxiety toward to end of primary education, which remains high for some time, before decreasing at the end of their first year in secondary education back to initial levels. This suggests that the transition to secondary education may be an important period for interventions for these groups because maths anxiety has been linked to GPA and maths ability ( Madjar et al., 2016 ).

A second kind of internalizing disorder is depression. Depression is closely associated with anxiety that manifests in several symptoms most commonly including feelings of sadness, lack of interest and pleasure in activities, lack of energy and concentration, feelings of worthlessness, and recurrent thoughts of suicide ( APA, 2017b ). The prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD) by age 14 is 8.4% ( Merikangas et al., 2010 ), and a figure that almost doubles to 15.4% from age 13–14 to age 17–18 suggesting that adolescence is a critical period for developing depression. Further support for this argument comes from reported increases in suicidal ideation at a similar age to the transition to secondary education ( Adrian et al., 2016 ).

Similar to the evidence regarding the transition to secondary education and anxiety symptoms, research on depression in this context is also somewhat sparse. Nevertheless, depressive symptomology is highly stable throughout adolescence, however, stability significantly drops during the transition from 6th to 7th grade coinciding with the transition from primary to secondary education ( Tram and Cole, 2006 ). Rice et al. (2011) further report positive associations between depression and post-transition school concerns.

Additionally, in a study of over 2000 Scottish pupils, West et al. (2010) reported that poorer transitions at age 11 (including both school and peer concerns, such as increased workload and bullying) predicted depression at age 13 and 15, while peer concerns at age 13 was weakly associated with psychological distress at age 18 (OR = 1.19). Their results contradict Kingery et al. (2011) data showing depression significantly decreases following the transition. However, the sample in Kingery et al.’ (2011) study included mostly Caucasian children residing in small, rural, suburban communities which may make generalizability to children studying in urban districts, or those from ethnically diverse backgrounds, problematic.

While the conclusion is somewhat unclear, depressive symptoms are important to keep in mind because Riglin et al. (2013) reported greater levels of depression at age 11 predicted academic achievement at the end of individuals’ first year of secondary education. However, when controlling for conduct disorder, this effect was no longer significant. Additional gender effects were evident with depression being significantly associated with poorer academic achievement for males only. The mediating effect of conduct disorder between depression and achievement further highlights that emotional problems and academic achievement are not independent outcomes, and that declines in one area often coincides with declines in other domains.

Although the evidence linking the transition to secondary education to mental health outcomes is sparse, there is a larger body of research linking it to psychological attributes such as self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-concept (e.g., Coelho et al., 2017 ). Though there are slight differences in meaning, these variables can be broadly defined as attitudes, beliefs, and models of a person’s own abilities, and their capability to perform such behaviors in a given situation ( APA, 2017c ). These concepts may be informative with respect to mental health outcomes because they have been linked to well-being, academic achievement, and other educational benefits (e.g., Diener and Diener, 1995 ; Marsh and Craven, 2006 ).

In a study of over 1100 Portuguese students, Coelho et al. (2017) reported decreases in academic self-concept, physical self-concept, and self-esteem after the primary-secondary education transition. The effect remained significant when controlling for gender. However, the school transition occurs slightly earlier in Portugal: as young as 9 years old. Additionally, self-esteem has been found to decrease during transitionary years and continues to decline post-transition ( Seidman et al., 2003 ; Arens et al., 2013b ). This decline is supported by Schaffhuser et al. (2017) who also reported decreases in self-esteem as well as academic and behavioral self-concepts over the transition. Moreover, student self-efficacy appears to be positively associated with teacher-rated overall school adjustment, as well as pupil-rated post-transition relationships with teachers ( Bailey and Baines, 2012 ). In addition, West et al. (2010) indicated self-esteem may act as a predictor of adjustment, with individuals low in self-esteem prior to the transfer experiencing a poorer transition to secondary education with greater school and peer concerns. Despite a general consistency in the transition having a negative effect on self-esteem, Kingery et al. (2011) report the opposite: self-esteem increased following the transition.

To summarize, the evidence concerning the impact of the transition on psychological outcomes has been inconsistent. While some researchers have concluded the transition is detrimental to emotional well-being and psychological attributes, others disagree. One consistent finding across domains is the effect of the transition is heightened for individuals expressing greater concerns before the changeover. It appears that adolescents who express more worries regarding the transition are more likely to suffer poorer transitions compared to their peers. In addition, compared to boys, girls have been reported to experience a poorer transition, with heightened levels of anxiety, and greater concerns over relationships and workload (e.g., Duchesne et al., 2009 ; Riglin et al., 2013 ). In the Section “Externalizing Symptoms and Anti-Social Behaviors,” we describe a separate category of emotional health symptoms, externalizing symptoms, and predictors of these symptoms that relate to the transition to secondary education.

Externalizing Symptoms and Anti-social Behaviors

Externalizing disorders can include a range of disruptive behaviors including conduct disorder, aggression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and oppositional behavior. Although such issues can often be disruptive to the learning environment in the classroom itself, they are also related to negative outcomes for the individual including low achievement, school dropout, and non-completion of further education ( Adams et al., 1999 ; McLeod and Kaiser, 2004 ; Reid et al., 2004 ; Finn et al., 2008 ).

There is a lack of research examining externalizing disorders and anti-social behaviors resulting from the primary-secondary education transition, although evidence suggests that the transition is an important event that may exacerbate the effects of externalizing disorders on educational outcomes. For example, Palmu et al. (2017) reported associations between conduct disorder and ADHD on academic performance during the transition to secondary education. In a study of over 300 12- to 13-year-old pupils in Finland, their results found externalizing behaviors were associated with a decrease in GPA, particularly, ADHD before the transition negatively affected GPA post-transition. Riglin et al. (2013) support this link with conduct problems prior to the transition associating with academic achievement post-transition. Additional analyses suggested that conduct problems pre-transition were also associated with a decrease in school liking following the move.

West et al. (2010) found higher levels of aggression were associated with poorer school transitions, but better peer transitions. Furthermore, aggressive behavior predicted academic expectations for secondary education as well as academic functioning post-transition ( Cillessen and Mayeux, 2007 ). Aggression appeared to interact with peer status such that there was no significant effect of aggressive behavior on academic functioning in individuals with high popularity. Conversely, adolescents with low popularity and high aggressive behavior were more likely to experience lower academic functioning.

It is evident that there are individual differences. For example, three types of aggressive behavior trajectories have been identified over the transition including low-stable, decreasing, and increasing ( Malti et al., 2015 ). Membership to a group was altered by the child’s views on friendships. Specifically, those who had less of an understanding of the value of trust and reciprocity within friendships were more likely to be in the increasing trajectory group. This highlights the importance of relationships with other individuals around the time of the school transition and may be a protecting factor against maladaptive outcomes.

Predictors of Emotional Health

The review above demonstrates that the school transition impacts a wide range of emotional health outcomes and adolescent behaviors; however, the success of the transition can also be influenced by a number of other factors under the categories identified in Figure ​ Figure1 1 . These additional influences can increase or decrease the risk of a poor transition and include the individual’s social network (family, peers, and teachers), special educational needs (SEN), as well as gender and pubertal status. Generally, the children most at risk of poor transitions are children recognized as SEN and those with a poor social network.

Environment-Level Predictors

As children progress to secondary education, they often face a substantially different environment compared to the one that they have been used to. This environment includes larger classrooms and school buildings to navigate, and different social networks. The move to secondary education also leads to changes in the educational goal structure toward performance-based goals ( Madjar et al., 2018 ). In a study of 415 schoolchildren (aged 11–12), Madjar et al. (2018) investigated goal orientations following the transition to secondary education. At present there are three commonly identified academic goals including: mastery-approach, which involves learning to acquire knowledge and skills; performance-approach, which involves demonstrating greater skills relative to others; and performance-avoidance, which involves avoiding demonstrating such skills. Madjar et al. (2018) argue that the transition from primary to secondary education coincides with a change from a mastery goal structure, to a performance goal structure post-transition. Further research provides evidence for performance goal structures being detrimental to school engagement ( Madjar and Chohat, 2017 ). These results suggest that the school transition may increase competition between individuals, and not always for the better (see Johnson et al., 1981 ). Transitioning schools could focus more on continuing to provide a mastery goal structure given its importance for engagement, school performance, and general learning (see Kaplan and Maehr, 2007 ). Otherwise, this change in goal structure may increase the risk of school disengagement post-transition, which can already be a common issue as teens grow older.

Duineveld et al. (2017) , who studied the secondary education transition in Finland, reported decreased depressive symptoms, decreased life satisfaction, and increased emotional exhaustion following the transition. In terms of the home environment, they found that mothers provided greater autonomy support (i.e., supporting the child’s self-governance and control over their life; Keller, 2016 ) compared to fathers prior to the transition. Moreover, Duineveld et al. (2017) reported greater levels of autonomy support before the transition significantly predicted a decline in depression after children moved to secondary education. This finding indicates that autonomous, supportive parenting that encourages independence may protect children from developing mental health disorders during the transition to secondary education.

Related evidence provides support for child-mother attachment predicting perceived academic competence and anxiety during the middle school transition ( Maltais et al., 2017 ). The protective power of attachment has also been argued to moderate the relationship between a social comparison learning environment in the classroom on anxiety symptoms ( Maltais et al., 2015 ). Furthermore, in a study of transitioning students, Booth-LaForce et al. (2012) reported that high-increasing growth in anxious withdrawal was predicted by low parental autonomy, low time spent with the mother, both restrictive and nurturing parenting, and peer exclusion. These findings further support the links between a positive, supportive social network, and adolescents’ behavioral outcomes during the transition.

Individual-Level Predictors

Social support is vital for early development, learning, and psychological well-being (e.g., Demaray and Malecki, 2002 ). Perceived social support can be very important during adolescence where individuals experience rapid changes biologically, emotionally, and socially. In addition, a positive social support network can also be protective of issues arising during the transition to secondary education. As we have mentioned above, parental support may buffer children from the emotional effects of the transition to secondary education (presumably through positive effects on the child’s social schema). The vast majority of research looking at the emotional impacts of the transition to secondary education has looked at variables that we have clustered as indicators of a child’s social schema in Figure ​ Figure1 1 .

First, peer relationships facilitate a positive transition on a range of adaptation measures. For example, Kingery et al. (2011) found that pre-transition positive peer relationships (e.g., peer acceptance, friendship quality, number of friends) predicted various positive post-transition well-being measures including academic achievement, loneliness (or lack of), self-esteem, and school involvement. Cantin and Boivin (2004) reported the transition to secondary education was associated with an increase of perceived social acceptance, as well as an increase in supportive relationships with their school friends. The increases reported were related to friends providing greater instrumental support, informational support, and emotional support. The effects remained in the following 2 years of school following the move. These findings further highlight the importance of friendships and peer relationships during the progression to secondary education.

In addition to the reorganization of children’s friendship networks, there is also evidence that the transition may provide new opportunities for victimized children. Wang et al. (2016) argued that victimization decreased for females following the school transition compared to girls that did not transition. Though, transition status made no difference in male victimization between the two time points. Additionally, exclusion and victimization have been argued to decrease following the transition on average, with those recognized as anxious-solitary youth experiencing greater relative declines ( Shell et al., 2014 ). This idea supports the notion of secondary education providing a chance for children to alter their identity as a victim which they may have been associated with in primary school, and also provides the opportunity for children to find new friends or change social groups to one which is more positive and supportive. Cantin and Boivin (2004) also state that around 61% of school peer ties identified prior to the transition no longer remained following the move, further reinforcing the idea that children renegotiate their social network.

Overall, there is general support that a positive social network is important for children’s well-being during the transition to secondary education, but children also require support from their teachers and school to feel more secure in their new environment.

A second protective factor against negative emotional outcomes includes school connectedness and belongingness ( affect to school in Figure ​ Figure1 1 ). For example, Vaz et al. (2014a) studied 266 Australian pupils, and reported increases in school belongingness resulted in decreases in mental health problems, even when controlling for prior mental health. Moreover, in a comparison study between transitioning and non-transitioning schools in Australia and Denmark, respectively, Nielsen et al. (2017) reported no significant difference in school connectedness in transitioning schools as pupils aged, whereas schools that did not transition experienced significant decreases in school connectedness over time. However, it may be important to highlight that although the number of “disconnected” students in the transitioning sample was similar across all age groups, this was close to significance in the transition year with increased odds of disconnectedness. This means that, although not statistically significant, there was a trend toward disconnectedness increasing during the transition year.

A third aspect of social schema is the relationship to teachers. After the transition to secondary education, children tend to have different teachers for each discipline, compared to having a single teacher in primary education. It can be difficult for children to form relationships with their new teachers as strong as those held previously. This change in their social network may be detrimental given preadolescents’ need for guidance and support during this time ( Eccles and Roeser, 2009 ). In addition, students have been found to possess a greater reliance on teacher support and a preference for external direction following the transition to secondary education ( Robbers et al., 2018 ). This change in the type of relationship with teachers has been notably recognized as one of the concerns amongst children moving into secondary education ( Duchesne et al., 2009 ).

Research findings concerning teacher relationships have been somewhat mixed. Martínez et al. (2011) describes how both social and teacher support significantly decline over the transition. Bru et al. (2010) also reported a general decline in perceived teacher support over the school years, nevertheless, they argue there is no obvious abrupt change during the time between primary and secondary education and criticize previous studies for not accounting for age-related differences. Despite mixed findings, teachers are likely to be an important part of the child’s social and support network, which we have seen is important for promoting well-being. Future research could therefore do more to look at the role of teachers within the child’s support network. For example, it would be beneficial to have research evaluating whether making student-teacher relationships and student-teacher support networks similar to those experienced in primary education leads to improved outcomes after the transition to secondary education.

Contextual Predictors

The previously described issues of declining social support and the different school climate are faced by every student. However, it is clear some students face additional difficulties when adjusting to secondary education, this includes children with SEN. SEN refers to children who have learning problems or disabilities that may make it difficult to learn relative to other children their age. This can include difficulties in reading and writing, behavioral issues, difficulty understanding or expressing themselves, as well as physical ability issues which may affect them while in school.

The school transition can be especially problematic for children with SEN. For children with sensory or mobility difficulties, solely moving between classes can be challenging, especially so in an unfamiliar environment such as a large, novel secondary school. Children with behavioral or emotional issues may have difficulty establishing relationships with teachers and peers, leaving them feeling isolated. With high importance placed on discipline and obedience to authority in secondary education, children with behavioral or emotional difficulties may be perceived by teachers as acting out or “troublemakers” when in fact they have different needs and requirements.

Fortunately, recent research has attempted to investigate the effects of the school transition more thoroughly for children with SEN, with the aim of identifying the most common issues and difficulties they may encounter during this change. In a systematic review examining the effects of the school transition for children with SEN, Hughes et al. (2013) investigated psychosocial functioning including internalizing functioning, self-concept, self-esteem, self-confidence, externalizing functioning, and social functioning. They identified key findings of a higher likelihood of victimization and bullying, poorer social adjustment (i.e., loneliness) and lower levels of perceived social support relative to typically developing children. Furthermore, children reported additional concerns and worries. These concerns referred to the provision for special needs in their new school, the ability to make friends, increased workload, and greater worries of bullying relative to their peers without SEN.

Since Hughes et al. (2013) conducted their review, a number of additional studies have been published finding similar results. First, Akos et al. (2015) reported less growth in both maths and reading during the transition year for SEN students despite having the largest year-to-year growth in the year prior to the changeover. Further research also reports individuals with disabilities display significantly lower academic competence compared to their typically developing peers pre- and post-transition ( Vaz et al., 2014b ). Though interestingly, adolescents with a disability showed an improvement in academic competence over the transition compared with other pupils. Conversely, disability status was linked to decreased mental health functioning pre- and post-transition. It is evident that adolescents with SEN have different requirements when moving to secondary education to ensure a successful transition. Neal et al. (2016) endorse a personal approach when designing transition strategies especially for children with SEN.

With respect to other potential contextual variables, gender has been found to predict adaptation to secondary education. This finding is not surprising given that (1) males and females develop at different rates during adolescence; and (2) internalizing disorders are more prevalent in females than to males ( Kessler et al., 2005 ; Merikangas et al., 2010 ). Coelho and Romão (2016) found that females experienced significantly higher academic and peer-related stress during the school transition compared to their male peers, whereas males reported higher stress regarding teachers and rules. Furthermore, females had significantly greater increases in peer-related stress during the transition. Grills-Taquechel et al. (2010) supported this conclusion with results suggesting that males experienced a significant decrease in anxiety during the transition to secondary education whereas girls did not. In addition, girls experienced significantly greater general and school anxiety pre- and post-transition. Females also reported a higher number of school concerns, but greater school liking and fewer conduct problems pre- and post-transition ( Riglin et al., 2013 ). Rice et al. (2011) also found school concerns were higher for females both prior to and following the transition. This finding is also supported by Smyth (2016) who reported that girls were more likely than boys to experience transition difficulties.

Furthermore, girls are more likely to experience maths anxiety over the transition to middle school. Madjar et al. (2016) found that girls reported higher maths anxiety following the transition to secondary education which later decreased to initial levels 1-year post-transition, whereas maths anxiety reported by boys remained stable during this time. This is an important finding as maths anxiety has been argued to have a bidirectional relationship with maths performance ( Carey et al., 2015 ). Consequently, if maths anxiety increases for girls during this time it may also impact their later performance, which in turn may increase their anxiety toward maths. Schaffhuser et al. (2017) also argued females are more negatively impacted by the transition compared to males. However, it is not entirely negative for females whereby girls in fact report higher academic and social functioning post-transition relative to boys ( Cillessen and Mayeux, 2007 ). On the other hand, Kingery et al. (2011) reported no gender differences in the overall adjustment to secondary education.

In addition, females tend to experience pubertal onset earlier than males ( Lee, 1980 ) which can have interesting interactions with the effect of the school transition. As described above, females tend to experience greater stress levels around the transition which is also around the time of pubertal onset. Koenig and Gladstone (1998) reported higher rates of depression among developing females (i.e., those that had started or in the latter stages of pubertal development) during the transition years, whereas rates among males were stable over time. However, it is important to note that this was examined in a high school sample as opposed to the earlier transition of middle school/secondary education. By the time of the transition in this sample, a large number of females had already fully developed.

The aim of this review was to assimilate the findings to date concerning the impact of the primary-to-secondary education transition on both academic and psychological outcomes. Overall, there appears to be some negative impacts of the transition, though it is difficult to conclude definitively because there are many inconsistencies in the data. These conflicts are not unexpected given the multitude of interacting factors that exacerbate or mitigate the impact of the transition. However, there are still some findings worth noting.

Firstly, the transition to secondary education appears to have some negative consequences for academic achievement ( Felner et al., 1981 ; Alspaugh and Harting, 1995 ; Alspaugh, 1998 ; Gutman and Midgley, 2000 ). Upon transitioning, students must adjust to larger schools and class sizes, greater academic independence, navigating new teacher and peer relationships, higher teacher expectations, and a bigger emphasis on grades and performance. These differences require children to adjust to new academic expectations, norms, and evaluation criteria. These differences can adversely impact young adolescents’ academic motivation and engagement, academic self-concept or competence, affect toward school and learning, and their intrinsic interest in school ( Harter, 1981 ; Eccles et al., 1984 ; Eccles and Midgley, 1989 ; Skinner et al., 1998 ). Individual difference factors including cognitive and emotional ability levels, gender, and SES can moderate associations between these factors and future academic achievement following the secondary education transition.

With respect to children’s emotional health, the evidence was inconsistent. Some researchers found significant negative impacts on emotional well-being post-transition, while others found positive outcomes, or negligible results. Clearly, we need a better understanding of the interplay between the constructs identified in Figure ​ Figure1 1 to get a handle on what moderates the effect of the transition on emotional health.

Several risk and protecting factors were identified to play an important role in the transition. First, things likely to affect the child’s social schema were found to be particularly important over the transition, including social support received from parents, teachers, and peers. During the transition, children often renegotiate their friendship groups and report decreased general social support during this time. Cohen and Wills (1985) reviewed two main explanations for the role of social support during stressful situations: first, that social support acts as a buffer against stress and second, that solely being part of a social network is helpful for the individual. Their review found support for both explanations, suggesting social support provides various benefits during stressful events and daily life. These ideas may also support the evidence discussed in relation to the importance of social networks around the transition to secondary education. Due to the heightened stress felt by children during this time, social support may help them feel more secure and socially accepted. Parents and teachers should be made aware of the perceived decline in social support reported by adolescents and aim to provide additional support when required to allow for the best outcomes. Despite perceived declines in parental support and perceived increases in peer support during the transition, it is parental support that most accurately indicates emotional difficulties in adolescents ( Helsen et al., 2000 ). Waters et al. (2014) support this finding, concluding that parental presence at home before and after school is the most significant predictor of a positive transition experience.

Additionally, the school and class environment can elicit negative outcomes. For example, children report higher performance-based goals in secondary education compared to the mastery approach in primary education. A performance-approach increases competition between individuals whereas a mastery approach focuses on learning and working with the purpose of gaining knowledge. This change can be harmful to engagement which is an important aspect to sustain during the transition.

Furthermore, some individuals are more “at-risk” of a poor transition relative to their peers. Those most affected include children with SEN. First, children with SEN may face additional difficulties during the move, including matters that may be seemingly straightforward such as transport and mobility, an issue that is usually not as applicable to typically developing children. Furthermore, the findings suggest children with SEN overall report higher victimization, poorer adjustment, lower levels of social support, and reduced academic growth during the transitional year. There are also noteworthy gender differences. The research suggests that females are arguably more affected by the transfer. Girls report higher rates of school concerns, as well as experiencing higher levels of anxiety and depression (in line with other research findings of higher rates of emotional and mood disorders in the adult population among females). Conversely, boys report higher concerns regarding rules and teachers, as well as higher rates of behavioral and conduct problems compared to females.

Theoretical Explanations

Ideally, we need a theoretical model to explain how environment-level constructs create changes in the child’s individual-level schema, how environment-level constructs directly affect academic and emotional outcomes, and how individual-level schema affect academic and emotional outcomes. It is a tall order. There are too many potentially relevant theoretical frameworks to cover in one paper, but we can use the example of anxiety to look at how theories of emotion might prove useful.

First, we can look to these models to explain why the transition to secondary education might increase anxiety. Recent research has found very little evidence for the genetic transmission of anxiety, which implies that most risk comes from environmental transmission ( Eley et al., 2015 ). Given that children spend a considerable proportion of their day in school, the school environment is likely to be a potential anxiety trigger. Learning theories suggest that anxiety is acquired through an association-based system in which stimuli and situations come to evoke fear through direct association with fear-evoking experiences, verbal threat information, and observational learning ( Mineka and Zinbarg, 2006 ; Field and Purkis, 2011 ). The aforementioned shift to performance-based goals in secondary education, heightened teacher expectations, and lower teacher support may be associated with more verbal threat information (“if you don’t perform well, you won’t get a good job”), more direct negative experiences (e.g., being told off, or social humiliation, when performance is below what is expected), and more observational threat learning (observing others being told off or humiliated when they perform below expectations). Research supports the idea of performance-goal structures creating anxiety: goal structure has been linked to maths anxiety ( Federici et al., 2015 ; Skaalvik et al., 2017 ) and Baudoin and Galand (2017) reported that performance-based goal structures were associated with feelings of shame and anxiety in schoolchildren. These heightened expectations and associated threat messages at school may be mirrored in the home environment, and may be exacerbated by certain parenting styles known to increase anxiety, such as over-critical parenting ( Creswell et al., 2010 ).

Given that there is a theoretical route through which the transition could create anxiety, then we can look at the effect that this anxiety might have on the individual-level constructs. Heightened anxiety is associated with patterns of information processing ( Hadwin and Field, 2010 ) such as a tendency to interpret ambiguity in a threatening way ( interpretation bias ) and a tendency to attend to threat in the environment ( attentional bias to threat ). As such, once anxiety is heightened students may attend more to both negative feedback about performance (which may negatively affect learning schema and academic self-concept) and negative social cues (which will affect social schema). Equally, ambiguity about academic and social matters may be interpreted more negatively. In short, the knock-on effect of a transition that creates anxiety will be a processing style that is likely to impact social schema, learning schema, and academic self-concept. Those already prone to anxiety are most likely to experience more anxiety, and greater biases in their information processing, which would lead to more anxiety. This idea is supported by Lester et al. (unpublished) who found that children with greater interpretation bias toward threat experienced higher levels of anxiety before transitioning to secondary education. Of course, this theory also explains variance in the levels of anxiety following the transition (e.g., Grills-Taquechel et al., 2010 ; Madjar et al., 2016 ; Lester et al., unpublished), because there will be variance in the negativity in secondary environments and variance in children’s risk for anxiety.

For children for whom the transition creates anxiety (and shifts in their schema and information processing), the attentional control theory, which suggests that anxiety impairs goal-directed attentional systems, offers a theoretical mechanism for why academic performance would be affected ( Eysenck et al., 2007 ). One key assumption of this theory is that anxiety increases the attentional allocation toward threat-related stimuli including both external and internal stimuli (i.e., worrisome thoughts). This theory can explain why the anxiety-inducing transition impairs academic outcomes by reducing the attentional capacity available for cognitive tasks. For example, a child experiencing anxiety because of the transition will allocate less attention to tasks in the lesson, and more attention toward worrisome thoughts, and as a result will perform worse in class. This model has been supported by research conducted on maths anxiety and performance (e.g., Carey et al., 2017 ). Maths performance is arguably more affected by anxiety as it requires significant executive function skills ( Cragg and Gilmore, 2014 ), and as anxiety takes up the allocation available, the executive function systems required to perform maths tasks efficiently are put under strain and performance on the task diminishes, resulting in poorer academic achievement. The attentional control theory also supports the links found between emotional well-being and academic performance.

The theories of anxiety we have used are illustrative of how psychological theory can and, probably, should be used to try to construct parsimonious theoretical frameworks for the effects of the transition to secondary education. Of course, the theories we chose offer little explanation of depressive symptoms, conduct problems and so on. The point is simply that it is possible to build on well-established psychological theory to explain the interplay between the constructs reviewed in this paper.

Implications for School Intervention Strategies

The above findings have implications for school-based intervention programs that target the primary-to-secondary education transition. At present, these programs are free to vary between schools and districts and often attempt to improve self-confidence and problem-solving (e.g., Shepherd and Roker, 2005 ). To date, a few studies have examined the impact of different school programs over the transition to investigate whether this makes the transfer easier for students. One study found systemic strategies (e.g., group work on projects with future classmates and modules taught continuously over the transition) were associated with lower school anxiety, though only in typically developing children ( Neal et al., 2016 ). In addition, Rosenblatt and Elias (2008) found that U.S. children who took part in an intervention focusing on social-emotional learning before transitioning had a smaller decline in GPA when receiving higher dosages of the intervention compared to a low dosage group. Furthermore, Shepherd and Roker (2005) investigated a project run after-school which aimed to build self-esteem and resilience in particularly withdrawn and shy children and found improvements in both self-esteem and social skills and fewer school concerns.

While several interventions focus on social-emotional development and improving social skills, only a small number of studies have investigated ways to improve educational achievement. One study conducted by Siddiqui et al. (2016) evaluated a reading program following the transition that was undertaken by pupils who had not reached the expected level for English in their final year of primary education. Their results found that children receiving the intervention had higher reading scores compared to a control group. However, in an earlier study, Siddiqui et al. (2014) evaluated a summer school program that focused on literacy and numeracy skills and found it was not effective in improving the educational achievement of “at-risk” students.

While it is clear some of these programs have benefits for students, much more research is needed to assess the effectiveness of different types of intervention programs with greater sample sizes and longitudinal investigation. Based on the evidence presented, future programs should focus on increasing perceived social support (including that given by parents, teachers, and peers), continuation of academic study, such as introducing topics in the final year of primary education that are continued through to secondary education, and developing social-emotional interventions that can be administered nationwide which are effective for typically developing children and those with SEN. In addition, the difficulties associated with the transitional period could be eased by preparing children for the change in goal structure, or by secondary schools adopting a mastery environment, which is arguably more beneficial for children’s learning ( Meece et al., 2006 ).

Limitations

Many of the studies presented here were conducted several years ago, often using longitudinal data collected years prior, which may decrease the relevance to education and schools today. This limitation highlights the need for more research to examine how the changes in our educational systems and the advancements made particularly in schooling and technology may impact both the well-being of students and their learning environment during the transition to secondary education. For example, in comparison to transitional students that participated in studies conducted in the early 2000s, it is now the norm for adolescents to own, or have access to a mobile phone, computer, or tablet ( Ofcom, 2017 ). To date, very few studies have investigated the use of the internet in transition interventions (e.g., Maher, 2010 ), and it appears there is a lack of investigation into the effects of technology on well-being and achievement during the transitional years. Current investigation into this area is important for a number of reasons. One example to illustrate this is bullying. Advancements in technology have made bullying an online activity resulting in around 49% of children being victims of cyberbullying ( Raskauskas and Stoltz, 2007 ). As discussed previously, the transition may help victimized children renegotiate their social network to no longer be victims of bullying (e.g., Shell et al., 2014 ; Wang et al., 2016 ). However, it could be speculated that if evidence of the bullying that occurred during primary education was online, the renegotiation of their social network would not be able to occur, and as such, victimized children would continue to experience bullying throughout secondary education. Another example is the use of the internet to facilitate the transition in a practical manner, i.e., showing interactive maps of the school environment and classrooms to prospective students. An online, interactive map may be beneficial as one of the worries reported by transitional students was being lost ( Zeedyk et al., 2003 ). Another potential use of technology is inviting classroom peers to get to know each other by using a monitored forum where children may introduce themselves and ask their new teacher and a few current students any questions they may have. Additional homework to be completed over the summer prior to the transition could be made available on such a forum to help decrease the interruption in achievement found during the transitional years ( Akos et al., 2015 ). While the above points made are based on speculation alone, future research examining some of these ideas could provide interesting insights into the use of technology during the transition year to help facilitate a successful transition in terms of student well-being, social interaction, academic growth, and environmental practicalities.

Another limitation is the lack of cultural diversity within the research discussed. The studies presented here have focused on particularly “western systems” such as those in America, Europe and Australia. One reason for the lack of diversity is the differences found in systems around the world. For example, children attending schools in places such as Mexico, Africa, or the Middle East, are less likely to attend school past the age of 11 ( UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2010 ; Gibbs and Heaton, 2014 ), therefore making the secondary education transition a non-event. However, one of the Sustainable Development Goals set out to achieve by 2030 by the United Nations is to ensure all children complete primary and secondary education. Hopefully, this increase in attendance worldwide allows for comparisons of the transition to be made in the future, allowing for research from a range of culturally diverse countries to examine the issues children encounter during this time, and whether they differ between nations.

The importance of emotional well-being, specifically within schools, has been acknowledged by the British Psychological Society in a recent briefing paper ( BPS, 2017 ). It is reported that one in four children and adolescents display signs of a mental health difficulty, with up to three children in every classroom experiencing a mental health issue that can be treated. Furthermore, only 25–40% of the young people affected by these issues receive support from a mental health professional early enough in their development, if they receive any help at all. As most of the disorders experienced in childhood and adolescence continue into adulthood, it is beneficial for everyone involved to ensure interventions are administered as early as possible not only for better emotional well-being but also because of the associations with academic achievement and social functioning, all of which are important for a successful transition. To help during this time, parents and schools could aim to provide more social support during and following the transition to increase the perceived support felt by adolescents. Schools could also provide transition strategies that focus on the worries of children such as being lost or being bullied. In addition, schools could teach topics that can be carried on from primary to secondary education to help with the interruption of achievement. Furthermore, children with SEN should have additional support and provisions in place to ensure they transition with as few difficulties as possible.

Despite all the evidence presented, there are still gaps in the literature. The research investigating internalizing and externalizing disorders is particularly sparse and should be the focus for future exploration. Furthermore, researchers should pilot transition strategies in schools based on the recommendations above. Additional research should aim to utilize longitudinal designs measuring a wide range of factors to accurately assess the impact of the school transition on several outcomes including academic achievement and emotional well-being. Hopefully, future research will overcome the inconsistent findings to date and will reliably identify factors that ensure children become well-adjusted to their new environment. By identifying predictive factors of importance for the primary-to-secondary school transition, researchers can help enable every child to have the opportunity to make a successful transition to secondary education and continue to develop academically, socially, and emotionally.

Author Contributions

All authors contributed to the inception of the paper. DE took the lead on the writing overall (notably the sections “Introduction,” “Discussion,” and the section “The Effects of the Transition to Secondary Education on Emotional Health”), did the initial planning, and coordinated the authors. GB took the lead on writing the section “The Effects of the Transition to Secondary Education on Academic Achievement” and had input on all drafts. AF supervised the project, commented on and edited the first submission, and restructured and edited the revised version by introducing the conceptual framework in Figure ​ Figure1 1 .

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Philosophy of Education

Philosophy of education is the branch of applied or practical philosophy concerned with the nature and aims of education and the philosophical problems arising from educational theory and practice. Because that practice is ubiquitous in and across human societies, its social and individual manifestations so varied, and its influence so profound, the subject is wide-ranging, involving issues in ethics and social/political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and language, and other areas of philosophy. Because it looks both inward to the parent discipline and outward to educational practice and the social, legal, and institutional contexts in which it takes place, philosophy of education concerns itself with both sides of the traditional theory/practice divide. Its subject matter includes both basic philosophical issues (e.g., the nature of the knowledge worth teaching, the character of educational equality and justice, etc.) and problems concerning specific educational policies and practices (e.g., the desirability of standardized curricula and testing, the social, economic, legal and moral dimensions of specific funding arrangements, the justification of curriculum decisions, etc.). In all this the philosopher of education prizes conceptual clarity, argumentative rigor, the fair-minded consideration of the interests of all involved in or affected by educational efforts and arrangements, and informed and well-reasoned valuation of educational aims and interventions.

Philosophy of education has a long and distinguished history in the Western philosophical tradition, from Socrates’ battles with the sophists to the present day. Many of the most distinguished figures in that tradition incorporated educational concerns into their broader philosophical agendas (Curren 2000, 2018; Rorty 1998). While that history is not the focus here, it is worth noting that the ideals of reasoned inquiry championed by Socrates and his descendants have long informed the view that education should foster in all students, to the extent possible, the disposition to seek reasons and the ability to evaluate them cogently, and to be guided by their evaluations in matters of belief, action and judgment. This view, that education centrally involves the fostering of reason or rationality, has with varying articulations and qualifications been embraced by most of those historical figures; it continues to be defended by contemporary philosophers of education as well (Scheffler 1973 [1989]; Siegel 1988, 1997, 2007, 2017). As with any philosophical thesis it is controversial; some dimensions of the controversy are explored below.

This entry is a selective survey of important contemporary work in Anglophone philosophy of education; it does not treat in detail recent scholarship outside that context.

1. Problems in Delineating the Field

2. analytic philosophy of education and its influence, 3.1 the content of the curriculum and the aims and functions of schooling, 3.2 social, political and moral philosophy, 3.3 social epistemology, virtue epistemology, and the epistemology of education, 3.4 philosophical disputes concerning empirical education research, 4. concluding remarks, other internet resources, related entries.

The inward/outward looking nature of the field of philosophy of education alluded to above makes the task of delineating the field, of giving an over-all picture of the intellectual landscape, somewhat complicated (for a detailed account of this topography, see Phillips 1985, 2010). Suffice it to say that some philosophers, as well as focusing inward on the abstract philosophical issues that concern them, are drawn outwards to discuss or comment on issues that are more commonly regarded as falling within the purview of professional educators, educational researchers, policy-makers and the like. (An example is Michael Scriven, who in his early career was a prominent philosopher of science; later he became a central figure in the development of the field of evaluation of educational and social programs. See Scriven 1991a, 1991b.) At the same time, there are professionals in the educational or closely related spheres who are drawn to discuss one or another of the philosophical issues that they encounter in the course of their work. (An example here is the behaviorist psychologist B.F. Skinner, the central figure in the development of operant conditioning and programmed learning, who in works such as Walden Two (1948) and Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1972) grappled—albeit controversially—with major philosophical issues that were related to his work.)

What makes the field even more amorphous is the existence of works on educational topics, written by well-regarded philosophers who have made major contributions to their discipline; these educational reflections have little or no philosophical content, illustrating the truth that philosophers do not always write philosophy. However, despite this, works in this genre have often been treated as contributions to philosophy of education. (Examples include John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education [1693] and Bertrand Russell’s rollicking pieces written primarily to raise funds to support a progressive school he ran with his wife. (See Park 1965.)

Finally, as indicated earlier, the domain of education is vast, the issues it raises are almost overwhelmingly numerous and are of great complexity, and the social significance of the field is second to none. These features make the phenomena and problems of education of great interest to a wide range of socially-concerned intellectuals, who bring with them their own favored conceptual frameworks—concepts, theories and ideologies, methods of analysis and argumentation, metaphysical and other assumptions, and the like. It is not surprising that scholars who work in this broad genre also find a home in the field of philosophy of education.

As a result of these various factors, the significant intellectual and social trends of the past few centuries, together with the significant developments in philosophy, all have had an impact on the content of arguments and methods of argumentation in philosophy of education—Marxism, psycho-analysis, existentialism, phenomenology, positivism, post-modernism, pragmatism, neo-liberalism, the several waves of feminism, analytic philosophy in both its ordinary language and more formal guises, are merely the tip of the iceberg.

Conceptual analysis, careful assessment of arguments, the rooting out of ambiguity, the drawing of clarifying distinctions—all of which are at least part of the philosophical toolkit—have been respected activities within philosophy from the dawn of the field. No doubt it somewhat over-simplifies the complex path of intellectual history to suggest that what happened in the twentieth century—early on, in the home discipline itself, and with a lag of a decade or more in philosophy of education—is that philosophical analysis came to be viewed by some scholars as being the major philosophical activity (or set of activities), or even as being the only viable or reputable activity. In any case, as they gained prominence and for a time hegemonic influence during the rise of analytic philosophy early in the twentieth century analytic techniques came to dominate philosophy of education in the middle third of that century (Curren, Robertson, & Hager 2003).

The pioneering work in the modern period entirely in an analytic mode was the short monograph by C.D. Hardie, Truth and Fallacy in Educational Theory (1941; reissued in 1962). In his Introduction, Hardie (who had studied with C.D. Broad and I.A. Richards) made it clear that he was putting all his eggs into the ordinary-language-analysis basket:

The Cambridge analytical school, led by Moore, Broad and Wittgenstein, has attempted so to analyse propositions that it will always be apparent whether the disagreement between philosophers is one concerning matters of fact, or is one concerning the use of words, or is, as is frequently the case, a purely emotive one. It is time, I think, that a similar attitude became common in the field of educational theory. (Hardie 1962: xix)

About a decade after the end of the Second World War the floodgates opened and a stream of work in the analytic mode appeared; the following is merely a sample. D. J. O’Connor published An Introduction to Philosophy of Education (1957) in which, among other things, he argued that the word “theory” as it is used in educational contexts is merely a courtesy title, for educational theories are nothing like what bear this title in the natural sciences. Israel Scheffler, who became the paramount philosopher of education in North America, produced a number of important works including The Language of Education (1960), which contained clarifying and influential analyses of definitions (he distinguished reportive, stipulative, and programmatic types) and the logic of slogans (often these are literally meaningless, and, he argued, should be seen as truncated arguments), Conditions of Knowledge (1965), still the best introduction to the epistemological side of philosophy of education, and Reason and Teaching (1973 [1989]), which in a wide-ranging and influential series of essays makes the case for regarding the fostering of rationality/critical thinking as a fundamental educational ideal (cf. Siegel 2016). B. O. Smith and R. H. Ennis edited the volume Language and Concepts in Education (1961); and R.D. Archambault edited Philosophical Analysis and Education (1965), consisting of essays by a number of prominent British writers, most notably R. S. Peters (whose status in Britain paralleled that of Scheffler in the United States), Paul Hirst, and John Wilson. Topics covered in the Archambault volume were typical of those that became the “bread and butter” of analytic philosophy of education (APE) throughout the English-speaking world—education as a process of initiation, liberal education, the nature of knowledge, types of teaching, and instruction versus indoctrination.

Among the most influential products of APE was the analysis developed by Hirst and Peters (1970) and Peters (1973) of the concept of education itself. Using as a touchstone “normal English usage,” it was concluded that a person who has been educated (rather than instructed or indoctrinated) has been (i) changed for the better; (ii) this change has involved the acquisition of knowledge and intellectual skills and the development of understanding; and (iii) the person has come to care for, or be committed to, the domains of knowledge and skill into which he or she has been initiated. The method used by Hirst and Peters comes across clearly in their handling of the analogy with the concept of “reform”, one they sometimes drew upon for expository purposes. A criminal who has been reformed has changed for the better, and has developed a commitment to the new mode of life (if one or other of these conditions does not hold, a speaker of standard English would not say the criminal has been reformed). Clearly the analogy with reform breaks down with respect to the knowledge and understanding conditions. Elsewhere Peters developed the fruitful notion of “education as initiation”.

The concept of indoctrination was also of great interest to analytic philosophers of education, for, it was argued, getting clear about precisely what constitutes indoctrination also would serve to clarify the border that demarcates it from acceptable educational processes. Thus, whether or not an instructional episode was a case of indoctrination was determined by the content taught, the intention of the instructor, the methods of instruction used, the outcomes of the instruction, or by some combination of these. Adherents of the different analyses used the same general type of argument to make their case, namely, appeal to normal and aberrant usage. Unfortunately, ordinary language analysis did not lead to unanimity of opinion about where this border was located, and rival analyses of the concept were put forward (Snook 1972). The danger of restricting analysis to ordinary language (“normal English usage”) was recognized early on by Scheffler, whose preferred view of analysis emphasized

first, its greater sophistication as regards language, and the interpenetration of language and inquiry, second, its attempt to follow the modern example of the sciences in empirical spirit, in rigor, in attention to detail, in respect for alternatives, and in objectivity of method, and third, its use of techniques of symbolic logic brought to full development only in the last fifty years… It is…this union of scientific spirit and logical method applied toward the clarification of basic ideas that characterizes current analytic philosophy [and that ought to characterize analytic philosophy of education]. (Scheffler 1973 [1989: 9–10])

After a period of dominance, for a number of important reasons the influence of APE went into decline. First, there were growing criticisms that the work of analytic philosophers of education had become focused upon minutiae and in the main was bereft of practical import. (It is worth noting that a 1966 article in Time , reprinted in Lucas 1969, had put forward the same criticism of mainstream philosophy.) Second, in the early 1970’s radical students in Britain accused Peters’ brand of linguistic analysis of conservatism, and of tacitly giving support to “traditional values”—they raised the issue of whose English usage was being analyzed?

Third, criticisms of language analysis in mainstream philosophy had been mounting for some time, and finally after a lag of many years were reaching the attention of philosophers of education; there even had been a surprising degree of interest on the part of the general reading public in the United Kingdom as early as 1959, when Gilbert Ryle, editor of the journal Mind , refused to commission a review of Ernest Gellner’s Words and Things (1959)—a detailed and quite acerbic critique of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and its espousal of ordinary language analysis. (Ryle argued that Gellner’s book was too insulting, a view that drew Bertrand Russell into the fray on Gellner’s side—in the daily press, no less; Russell produced a list of insulting remarks drawn from the work of great philosophers of the past. See Mehta 1963.)

Richard Peters had been given warning that all was not well with APE at a conference in Canada in 1966; after delivering a paper on “The aims of education: A conceptual inquiry” that was based on ordinary language analysis, a philosopher in the audience (William Dray) asked Peters “ whose concepts do we analyze?” Dray went on to suggest that different people, and different groups within society, have different concepts of education. Five years before the radical students raised the same issue, Dray pointed to the possibility that what Peters had presented under the guise of a “logical analysis” was nothing but the favored usage of a certain class of persons—a class that Peters happened to identify with (see Peters 1973, where to the editor’s credit the interaction with Dray is reprinted).

Fourth, during the decade of the seventies when these various critiques of analytic philosophy were in the process of eroding its luster, a spate of translations from the Continent stimulated some philosophers of education in Britain and North America to set out in new directions, and to adopt a new style of writing and argumentation. Key works by Gadamer, Foucault and Derrida appeared in English, and these were followed in 1984 by Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition . The classic works of Heidegger and Husserl also found new admirers; and feminist philosophers of education were finding their voices—Maxine Greene published a number of pieces in the 1970s and 1980s, including The Dialectic of Freedom (1988); the influential book by Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education , appeared the same year as the work by Lyotard, followed a year later by Jane Roland Martin’s Reclaiming a Conversation . In more recent years all these trends have continued. APE was and is no longer the center of interest, although, as indicated below, it still retains its voice.

3. Areas of Contemporary Activity

As was stressed at the outset, the field of education is huge and contains within it a virtually inexhaustible number of issues that are of philosophical interest. To attempt comprehensive coverage of how philosophers of education have been working within this thicket would be a quixotic task for a large single volume and is out of the question for a solitary encyclopedia entry. Nevertheless, a valiant attempt to give an overview was made in A Companion to the Philosophy of Education (Curren 2003), which contains more than six-hundred pages divided into forty-five chapters each of which surveys a subfield of work. The following random selection of chapter topics gives a sense of the enormous scope of the field: Sex education, special education, science education, aesthetic education, theories of teaching and learning, religious education, knowledge, truth and learning, cultivating reason, the measurement of learning, multicultural education, education and the politics of identity, education and standards of living, motivation and classroom management, feminism, critical theory, postmodernism, romanticism, the purposes of universities, affirmative action in higher education, and professional education. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education (Siegel 2009) contains a similarly broad range of articles on (among other things) the epistemic and moral aims of education, liberal education and its imminent demise, thinking and reasoning, fallibilism and fallibility, indoctrination, authenticity, the development of rationality, Socratic teaching, educating the imagination, caring and empathy in moral education, the limits of moral education, the cultivation of character, values education, curriculum and the value of knowledge, education and democracy, art and education, science education and religious toleration, constructivism and scientific methods, multicultural education, prejudice, authority and the interests of children, and on pragmatist, feminist, and postmodernist approaches to philosophy of education.

Given this enormous range, there is no non-arbitrary way to select a small number of topics for further discussion, nor can the topics that are chosen be pursued in great depth. The choice of those below has been made with an eye to highlighting contemporary work that makes solid contact with and contributes to important discussions in general philosophy and/or the academic educational and educational research communities.

The issue of what should be taught to students at all levels of education—the issue of curriculum content—obviously is a fundamental one, and it is an extraordinarily difficult one with which to grapple. In tackling it, care needs to be taken to distinguish between education and schooling—for although education can occur in schools, so can mis-education, and many other things can take place there that are educationally orthogonal (such as the provision of free or subsidized lunches and the development of social networks); and it also must be recognized that education can occur in the home, in libraries and museums, in churches and clubs, in solitary interaction with the public media, and the like.

In developing a curriculum (whether in a specific subject area, or more broadly as the whole range of offerings in an educational institution or system), a number of difficult decisions need to be made. Issues such as the proper ordering or sequencing of topics in the chosen subject, the time to be allocated to each topic, the lab work or excursions or projects that are appropriate for particular topics, can all be regarded as technical issues best resolved either by educationists who have a depth of experience with the target age group or by experts in the psychology of learning and the like. But there are deeper issues, ones concerning the validity of the justifications that have been given for including/excluding particular subjects or topics in the offerings of formal educational institutions. (Why should evolution or creation “science” be included, or excluded, as a topic within the standard high school subject Biology? Is the justification that is given for teaching Economics in some schools coherent and convincing? Do the justifications for including/excluding materials on birth control, patriotism, the Holocaust or wartime atrocities in the curriculum in some school districts stand up to critical scrutiny?)

The different justifications for particular items of curriculum content that have been put forward by philosophers and others since Plato’s pioneering efforts all draw, explicitly or implicitly, upon the positions that the respective theorists hold about at least three sets of issues.

First, what are the aims and/or functions of education (aims and functions are not necessarily the same)? Many aims have been proposed; a short list includes the production of knowledge and knowledgeable students, the fostering of curiosity and inquisitiveness, the enhancement of understanding, the enlargement of the imagination, the civilizing of students, the fostering of rationality and/or autonomy, and the development in students of care, concern and associated dispositions and attitudes (see Siegel 2007 for a longer list). The justifications offered for all such aims have been controversial, and alternative justifications of a single proposed aim can provoke philosophical controversy. Consider the aim of autonomy. Aristotle asked, what constitutes the good life and/or human flourishing, such that education should foster these (Curren 2013)? These two formulations are related, for it is arguable that our educational institutions should aim to equip individuals to pursue this good life—although this is not obvious, both because it is not clear that there is one conception of the good or flourishing life that is the good or flourishing life for everyone, and it is not clear that this is a question that should be settled in advance rather than determined by students for themselves. Thus, for example, if our view of human flourishing includes the capacity to think and act autonomously, then the case can be made that educational institutions—and their curricula—should aim to prepare, or help to prepare, autonomous individuals. A rival justification of the aim of autonomy, associated with Kant, champions the educational fostering of autonomy not on the basis of its contribution to human flourishing, but rather the obligation to treat students with respect as persons (Scheffler 1973 [1989]; Siegel 1988). Still others urge the fostering of autonomy on the basis of students’ fundamental interests, in ways that draw upon both Aristotelian and Kantian conceptual resources (Brighouse 2005, 2009). It is also possible to reject the fostering of autonomy as an educational aim (Hand 2006).

Assuming that the aim can be justified, how students should be helped to become autonomous or develop a conception of the good life and pursue it is of course not immediately obvious, and much philosophical ink has been spilled on the general question of how best to determine curriculum content. One influential line of argument was developed by Paul Hirst, who argued that knowledge is essential for developing and then pursuing a conception of the good life, and because logical analysis shows, he argued, that there are seven basic forms of knowledge, the case can be made that the function of the curriculum is to introduce students to each of these forms (Hirst 1965; see Phillips 1987: ch. 11). Another, suggested by Scheffler, is that curriculum content should be selected so as “to help the learner attain maximum self-sufficiency as economically as possible.” The relevant sorts of economy include those of resources, teacher effort, student effort, and the generalizability or transfer value of content, while the self-sufficiency in question includes

self-awareness, imaginative weighing of alternative courses of action, understanding of other people’s choices and ways of life, decisiveness without rigidity, emancipation from stereotyped ways of thinking and perceiving…empathy… intuition, criticism and independent judgment. (Scheffler 1973 [1989: 123–5])

Both impose important constraints on the curricular content to be taught.

Second, is it justifiable to treat the curriculum of an educational institution as a vehicle for furthering the socio-political interests and goals of a dominant group, or any particular group, including one’s own; and relatedly, is it justifiable to design the curriculum so that it serves as an instrument of control or of social engineering? In the closing decades of the twentieth century there were numerous discussions of curriculum theory, particularly from Marxist and postmodern perspectives, that offered the sobering analysis that in many educational systems, including those in Western democracies, the curriculum did indeed reflect and serve the interests of powerful cultural elites. What to do about this situation (if it is indeed the situation of contemporary educational institutions) is far from clear and is the focus of much work at the interface of philosophy of education and social/political philosophy, some of which is discussed in the next section. A closely related question is this: ought educational institutions be designed to further pre-determined social ends, or rather to enable students to competently evaluate all such ends? Scheffler argued that we should opt for the latter: we must

surrender the idea of shaping or molding the mind of the pupil. The function of education…is rather to liberate the mind, strengthen its critical powers, [and] inform it with knowledge and the capacity for independent inquiry. (Scheffler 1973 [1989: 139])

Third, should educational programs at the elementary and secondary levels be made up of a number of disparate offerings, so that individuals with different interests and abilities and affinities for learning can pursue curricula that are suitable? Or should every student pursue the same curriculum as far as each is able?—a curriculum, it should be noted, that in past cases nearly always was based on the needs or interests of those students who were academically inclined or were destined for elite social roles. Mortimer Adler and others in the late twentieth century sometimes used the aphorism “the best education for the best is the best education for all.”

The thinking here can be explicated in terms of the analogy of an out-of-control virulent disease, for which there is only one type of medicine available; taking a large dose of this medicine is extremely beneficial, and the hope is that taking only a little—while less effective—is better than taking none at all. Medically, this is dubious, while the educational version—forcing students to work, until they exit the system, on topics that do not interest them and for which they have no facility or motivation—has even less merit. (For a critique of Adler and his Paideia Proposal , see Noddings 2015.) It is interesting to compare the modern “one curriculum track for all” position with Plato’s system outlined in the Republic , according to which all students—and importantly this included girls—set out on the same course of study. Over time, as they moved up the educational ladder it would become obvious that some had reached the limit imposed upon them by nature, and they would be directed off into appropriate social roles in which they would find fulfillment, for their abilities would match the demands of these roles. Those who continued on with their education would eventually become members of the ruling class of Guardians.

The publication of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in 1971 was the most notable event in the history of political philosophy over the last century. The book spurred a period of ferment in political philosophy that included, among other things, new research on educationally fundamental themes. The principles of justice in educational distribution have perhaps been the dominant theme in this literature, and Rawls’s influence on its development has been pervasive.

Rawls’s theory of justice made so-called “fair equality of opportunity” one of its constitutive principles. Fair equality of opportunity entailed that the distribution of education would not put the children of those who currently occupied coveted social positions at any competitive advantage over other, equally talented and motivated children seeking the qualifications for those positions (Rawls 1971: 72–75). Its purpose was to prevent socio-economic differences from hardening into social castes that were perpetuated across generations. One obvious criticism of fair equality of opportunity is that it does not prohibit an educational distribution that lavished resources on the most talented children while offering minimal opportunities to others. So long as untalented students from wealthy families were assigned opportunities no better than those available to their untalented peers among the poor, no breach of the principle would occur. Even the most moderate egalitarians might find such a distributive regime to be intuitively repugnant.

Repugnance might be mitigated somewhat by the ways in which the overall structure of Rawls’s conception of justice protects the interests of those who fare badly in educational competition. All citizens must enjoy the same basic liberties, and equal liberty always has moral priority over equal opportunity: the former can never be compromised to advance the latter. Further, inequality in the distribution of income and wealth are permitted only to the degree that it serves the interests of the least advantaged group in society. But even with these qualifications, fair equality of opportunity is arguably less than really fair to anyone. The fact that their education should secure ends other than access to the most selective social positions—ends such as artistic appreciation, the kind of self-knowledge that humanistic study can furnish, or civic virtue—is deemed irrelevant according to Rawls’s principle. But surely it is relevant, given that a principle of educational justice must be responsive to the full range of educationally important goods.

Suppose we revise our account of the goods included in educational distribution so that aesthetic appreciation, say, and the necessary understanding and virtue for conscientious citizenship count for just as much as job-related skills. An interesting implication of doing so is that the rationale for requiring equality under any just distribution becomes decreasingly clear. That is because job-related skills are positional whereas the other educational goods are not (Hollis 1982). If you and I both aspire to a career in business management for which we are equally qualified, any increase in your job-related skills is a corresponding disadvantage to me unless I can catch up. Positional goods have a competitive structure by definition, though the ends of civic or aesthetic education do not fit that structure. If you and I aspire to be good citizens and are equal in civic understanding and virtue, an advance in your civic education is no disadvantage to me. On the contrary, it is easier to be a good citizen the better other citizens learn to be. At the very least, so far as non-positional goods figure in our conception of what counts as a good education, the moral stakes of inequality are thereby lowered.

In fact, an emerging alternative to fair equality of opportunity is a principle that stipulates some benchmark of adequacy in achievement or opportunity as the relevant standard of distribution. But it is misleading to represent this as a contrast between egalitarian and sufficientarian conceptions. Philosophically serious interpretations of adequacy derive from the ideal of equal citizenship (Satz 2007; Anderson 2007). Then again, fair equality of opportunity in Rawls’s theory is derived from a more fundamental ideal of equality among citizens. This was arguably true in A Theory of Justice but it is certainly true in his later work (Dworkin 1977: 150–183; Rawls 1993). So, both Rawls’s principle and the emerging alternative share an egalitarian foundation. The debate between adherents of equal opportunity and those misnamed as sufficientarians is certainly not over (e.g., Brighouse & Swift 2009; Jacobs 2010; Warnick 2015). Further progress will likely hinge on explicating the most compelling conception of the egalitarian foundation from which distributive principles are to be inferred. Another Rawls-inspired alternative is that a “prioritarian” distribution of achievement or opportunity might turn out to be the best principle we can come up with—i.e., one that favors the interests of the least advantaged students (Schouten 2012).

The publication of Rawls’s Political Liberalism in 1993 signaled a decisive turning point in his thinking about justice. In his earlier book, the theory of justice had been presented as if it were universally valid. But Rawls had come to think that any theory of justice presented as such was open to reasonable rejection. A more circumspect approach to justification would seek grounds for justice as fairness in an overlapping consensus between the many reasonable values and doctrines that thrive in a democratic political culture. Rawls argued that such a culture is informed by a shared ideal of free and equal citizenship that provided a new, distinctively democratic framework for justifying a conception of justice. The shift to political liberalism involved little revision on Rawls’s part to the content of the principles he favored. But the salience it gave to questions about citizenship in the fabric of liberal political theory had important educational implications. How was the ideal of free and equal citizenship to be instantiated in education in a way that accommodated the range of reasonable values and doctrines encompassed in an overlapping consensus? Political Liberalism has inspired a range of answers to that question (cf. Callan 1997; Clayton 2006; Bull 2008).

Other philosophers besides Rawls in the 1990s took up a cluster of questions about civic education, and not always from a liberal perspective. Alasdair Macintyre’s After Virtue (1984) strongly influenced the development of communitarian political theory which, as its very name might suggest, argued that the cultivation of community could preempt many of the problems with conflicting individual rights at the core of liberalism. As a full-standing alternative to liberalism, communitarianism might have little to recommend it. But it was a spur for liberal philosophers to think about how communities could be built and sustained to support the more familiar projects of liberal politics (e.g., Strike 2010). Furthermore, its arguments often converged with those advanced by feminist exponents of the ethic of care (Noddings 1984; Gilligan 1982). Noddings’ work is particularly notable because she inferred a cogent and radical agenda for the reform of schools from her conception of care (Noddings 1992).

One persistent controversy in citizenship theory has been about whether patriotism is correctly deemed a virtue, given our obligations to those who are not our fellow citizens in an increasingly interdependent world and the sordid history of xenophobia with which modern nation states are associated. The controversy is partly about what we should teach in our schools and is commonly discussed by philosophers in that context (Galston 1991; Ben-Porath 2006; Callan 2006; Miller 2007; Curren & Dorn 2018). The controversy is related to a deeper and more pervasive question about how morally or intellectually taxing the best conception of our citizenship should be. The more taxing it is, the more constraining its derivative conception of civic education will be. Contemporary political philosophers offer divergent arguments about these matters. For example, Gutmann and Thompson claim that citizens of diverse democracies need to “understand the diverse ways of life of their fellow citizens” (Gutmann & Thompson 1996: 66). The need arises from the obligation of reciprocity which they (like Rawls) believe to be integral to citizenship. Because I must seek to cooperate with others politically on terms that make sense from their moral perspective as well as my own, I must be ready to enter that perspective imaginatively so as to grasp its distinctive content. Many such perspectives prosper in liberal democracies, and so the task of reciprocal understanding is necessarily onerous. Still, our actions qua deliberative citizen must be grounded in such reciprocity if political cooperation on terms acceptable to us as (diversely) morally motivated citizens is to be possible at all. This is tantamount to an imperative to think autonomously inside the role of citizen because I cannot close-mindedly resist critical consideration of moral views alien to my own without flouting my responsibilities as a deliberative citizen.

Civic education does not exhaust the domain of moral education, even though the more robust conceptions of equal citizenship have far-reaching implications for just relations in civil society and the family. The study of moral education has traditionally taken its bearings from normative ethics rather than political philosophy, and this is largely true of work undertaken in recent decades. The major development here has been the revival of virtue ethics as an alternative to the deontological and consequentialist theories that dominated discussion for much of the twentieth century.

The defining idea of virtue ethics is that our criterion of moral right and wrong must derive from a conception of how the ideally virtuous agent would distinguish between the two. Virtue ethics is thus an alternative to both consequentialism and deontology which locate the relevant criterion in producing good consequences or meeting the requirements of moral duty respectively. The debate about the comparative merits of these theories is not resolved, but from an educational perspective that may be less important than it has sometimes seemed to antagonists in the debate. To be sure, adjudicating between rival theories in normative ethics might shed light on how best to construe the process of moral education, and philosophical reflection on the process might help us to adjudicate between the theories. There has been extensive work on habituation and virtue, largely inspired by Aristotle (Burnyeat 1980; Peters 1981). But whether this does anything to establish the superiority of virtue ethics over its competitors is far from obvious. Other aspects of moral education—in particular, the paired processes of role-modelling and identification—deserve much more scrutiny than they have received (Audi 2017; Kristjánsson 2015, 2017).

Related to the issues concerning the aims and functions of education and schooling rehearsed above are those involving the specifically epistemic aims of education and attendant issues treated by social and virtue epistemologists. (The papers collected in Kotzee 2013 and Baehr 2016 highlight the current and growing interactions among social epistemologists, virtue epistemologists, and philosophers of education.)

There is, first, a lively debate concerning putative epistemic aims. Alvin Goldman argues that truth (or knowledge understood in the “weak” sense of true belief) is the fundamental epistemic aim of education (Goldman 1999). Others, including the majority of historically significant philosophers of education, hold that critical thinking or rationality and rational belief (or knowledge in the “strong” sense that includes justification) is the basic epistemic educational aim (Bailin & Siegel 2003; Scheffler 1965, 1973 [1989]; Siegel 1988, 1997, 2005, 2017). Catherine Z. Elgin (1999a,b) and Duncan Pritchard (2013, 2016; Carter & Pritchard 2017) have independently urged that understanding is the basic aim. Pritchard’s view combines understanding with intellectual virtue ; Jason Baehr (2011) systematically defends the fostering of the intellectual virtues as the fundamental epistemic aim of education. This cluster of views continues to engender ongoing discussion and debate. (Its complex literature is collected in Carter and Kotzee 2015, summarized in Siegel 2018, and helpfully analyzed in Watson 2016.)

A further controversy concerns the places of testimony and trust in the classroom: In what circumstances if any ought students to trust their teachers’ pronouncements, and why? Here the epistemology of education is informed by social epistemology, specifically the epistemology of testimony; the familiar reductionism/anti-reductionism controversy there is applicable to students and teachers. Anti-reductionists, who regard testimony as a basic source of justification, may with equanimity approve of students’ taking their teachers’ word at face value and believing what they say; reductionists may balk. Does teacher testimony itself constitute good reason for student belief?

The correct answer here seems clearly enough to be “it depends”. For very young children who have yet to acquire or develop the ability to subject teacher declarations to critical scrutiny, there seems to be little alternative to accepting what their teachers tell them. For older and more cognitively sophisticated students there seem to be more options: they can assess them for plausibility, compare them with other opinions, assess the teachers’ proffered reasons, subject them to independent evaluation, etc. Regarding “the teacher says that p ” as itself a good reason to believe it appears moreover to contravene the widely shared conviction that an important educational aim is helping students to become able to evaluate candidate beliefs for themselves and believe accordingly. That said, all sides agree that sometimes believers, including students, have good reasons simply to trust what others tell them. There is thus more work to do here by both social epistemologists and philosophers of education (for further discussion see Goldberg 2013; Siegel 2005, 2018).

A further cluster of questions, of long-standing interest to philosophers of education, concerns indoctrination : How if at all does it differ from legitimate teaching? Is it inevitable, and if so is it not always necessarily bad? First, what is it? As we saw earlier, extant analyses focus on the aims or intentions of the indoctrinator, the methods employed, or the content transmitted. If the indoctrination is successful, all have the result that students/victims either don’t, won’t, or can’t subject the indoctrinated material to proper epistemic evaluation. In this way it produces both belief that is evidentially unsupported or contravened and uncritical dispositions to believe. It might seem obvious that indoctrination, so understood, is educationally undesirable. But it equally seems that very young children, at least, have no alternative but to believe sans evidence; they have yet to acquire the dispositions to seek and evaluate evidence, or the abilities to recognize evidence or evaluate it. Thus we seem driven to the views that indoctrination is both unavoidable and yet bad and to be avoided. It is not obvious how this conundrum is best handled. One option is to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable indoctrination. Another is to distinguish between indoctrination (which is always bad) and non-indoctrinating belief inculcation, the latter being such that students are taught some things without reasons (the alphabet, the numbers, how to read and count, etc.), but in such a way that critical evaluation of all such material (and everything else) is prized and fostered (Siegel 1988: ch. 5). In the end the distinctions required by the two options might be extensionally equivalent (Siegel 2018).

Education, it is generally granted, fosters belief : in the typical propositional case, Smith teaches Jones that p , and if all goes well Jones learns it and comes to believe it. Education also has the task of fostering open-mindedness and an appreciation of our fallibility : All the theorists mentioned thus far, especially those in the critical thinking and intellectual virtue camps, urge their importance. But these two might seem at odds. If Jones (fully) believes that p , can she also be open-minded about it? Can she believe, for example, that earthquakes are caused by the movements of tectonic plates, while also believing that perhaps they aren’t? This cluster of italicized notions requires careful handling; it is helpfully discussed by Jonathan Adler (2002, 2003), who recommends regarding the latter two as meta-attitudes concerning one’s first-order beliefs rather than lessened degrees of belief or commitments to those beliefs.

Other traditional epistemological worries that impinge upon the epistemology of education concern (a) absolutism , pluralism and relativism with respect to knowledge, truth and justification as these relate to what is taught, (b) the character and status of group epistemologies and the prospects for understanding such epistemic goods “universalistically” in the face of “particularist” challenges, (c) the relation between “knowledge-how” and “knowledge-that” and their respective places in the curriculum, (d) concerns raised by multiculturalism and the inclusion/exclusion of marginalized perspectives in curriculum content and the classroom, and (e) further issues concerning teaching and learning. (There is more here than can be briefly summarized; for more references and systematic treatment cf. Bailin & Siegel 2003; Carter & Kotzee 2015; Cleverley & Phillips 1986; Robertson 2009; Siegel 2004, 2017; and Watson 2016.)

The educational research enterprise has been criticized for a century or more by politicians, policymakers, administrators, curriculum developers, teachers, philosophers of education, and by researchers themselves—but the criticisms have been contradictory. Charges of being “too ivory tower and theory-oriented” are found alongside “too focused on practice and too atheoretical”; but in light of the views of John Dewey and William James that the function of theory is to guide intelligent practice and problem-solving, it is becoming more fashionable to hold that the “theory v. practice” dichotomy is a false one. (For an illuminating account of the historical development of educational research and its tribulations, see Lagemann 2000.)

A similar trend can be discerned with respect to the long warfare between two rival groups of research methods—on one hand quantitative/statistical approaches to research, and on the other hand the qualitative/ethnographic family. (The choice of labels here is not entirely risk-free, for they have been contested; furthermore the first approach is quite often associated with “experimental” studies, and the latter with “case studies”, but this is an over-simplification.) For several decades these two rival methodological camps were treated by researchers and a few philosophers of education as being rival paradigms (Kuhn’s ideas, albeit in a very loose form, have been influential in the field of educational research), and the dispute between them was commonly referred to as “the paradigm wars”. In essence the issue at stake was epistemological: members of the quantitative/experimental camp believed that only their methods could lead to well-warranted knowledge claims, especially about the causal factors at play in educational phenomena, and on the whole they regarded qualitative methods as lacking in rigor; on the other hand the adherents of qualitative/ethnographic approaches held that the other camp was too “positivistic” and was operating with an inadequate view of causation in human affairs—one that ignored the role of motives and reasons, possession of relevant background knowledge, awareness of cultural norms, and the like. Few if any commentators in the “paradigm wars” suggested that there was anything prohibiting the use of both approaches in the one research program—provided that if both were used, they were used only sequentially or in parallel, for they were underwritten by different epistemologies and hence could not be blended together. But recently the trend has been towards rapprochement, towards the view that the two methodological families are, in fact, compatible and are not at all like paradigms in the Kuhnian sense(s) of the term; the melding of the two approaches is often called “mixed methods research”, and it is growing in popularity. (For more detailed discussion of these “wars” see Howe 2003 and Phillips 2009.)

The most lively contemporary debates about education research, however, were set in motion around the turn of the millennium when the US Federal Government moved in the direction of funding only rigorously scientific educational research—the kind that could establish causal factors which could then guide the development of practically effective policies. (It was held that such a causal knowledge base was available for medical decision-making.) The definition of “rigorously scientific”, however, was decided by politicians and not by the research community, and it was given in terms of the use of a specific research method—the net effect being that the only research projects to receive Federal funding were those that carried out randomized controlled experiments or field trials (RFTs). It has become common over the last decade to refer to the RFT as the “gold standard” methodology.

The National Research Council (NRC)—an arm of the US National Academies of Science—issued a report, influenced by postpostivistic philosophy of science (NRC 2002), that argued that this criterion was far too narrow. Numerous essays have appeared subsequently that point out how the “gold standard” account of scientific rigor distorts the history of science, how the complex nature of the relation between evidence and policy-making has been distorted and made to appear overly simple (for instance the role of value-judgments in linking empirical findings to policy directives is often overlooked), and qualitative researchers have insisted upon the scientific nature of their work. Nevertheless, and possibly because it tried to be balanced and supported the use of RFTs in some research contexts, the NRC report has been the subject of symposia in four journals, where it has been supported by a few and attacked from a variety of philosophical fronts: Its authors were positivists, they erroneously believed that educational inquiry could be value neutral and that it could ignore the ways in which the exercise of power constrains the research process, they misunderstood the nature of educational phenomena, and so on. This cluster of issues continues to be debated by educational researchers and by philosophers of education and of science, and often involves basic topics in philosophy of science: the constitution of warranting evidence, the nature of theories and of confirmation and explanation, etc. Nancy Cartwright’s important recent work on causation, evidence, and evidence-based policy adds layers of both philosophical sophistication and real world practical analysis to the central issues just discussed (Cartwright & Hardie 2012, Cartwright 2013; cf. Kvernbekk 2015 for an overview of the controversies regarding evidence in the education and philosophy of education literatures).

As stressed earlier, it is impossible to do justice to the whole field of philosophy of education in a single encyclopedia entry. Different countries around the world have their own intellectual traditions and their own ways of institutionalizing philosophy of education in the academic universe, and no discussion of any of this appears in the present essay. But even in the Anglo-American world there is such a diversity of approaches that any author attempting to produce a synoptic account will quickly run into the borders of his or her competence. Clearly this has happened in the present case.

Fortunately, in the last thirty years or so resources have become available that significantly alleviate these problems. There has been a flood of encyclopedia entries, both on the field as a whole and also on many specific topics not well-covered in the present essay (see, as a sample, Burbules 1994; Chambliss 1996b; Curren 1998, 2018; Phillips 1985, 2010; Siegel 2007; Smeyers 1994), two “Encyclopedias” (Chambliss 1996a; Phillips 2014), a “Guide” (Blake, Smeyers, Smith, & Standish 2003), a “Companion” (Curren 2003), two “Handbooks” (Siegel 2009; Bailey, Barrow, Carr, & McCarthy 2010), a comprehensive anthology (Curren 2007), a dictionary of key concepts in the field (Winch & Gingell 1999), and a good textbook or two (Carr 2003; Noddings 2015). In addition there are numerous volumes both of reprinted selections and of specially commissioned essays on specific topics, some of which were given short shrift here (for another sampling see A. Rorty 1998, Stone 1994), and several international journals, including Theory and Research in Education , Journal of Philosophy of Education , Educational Theory , Studies in Philosophy and Education , and Educational Philosophy and Theory . Thus there is more than enough material available to keep the interested reader busy.

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The authors and editors would like to thank Randall Curren for sending a number of constructive suggestions for the Summer 2018 update of this entry.

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Role of Education for Successful Careers Essay

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Introduction

Works cited.

Over the years, there has been ongoing debate on the importance of education for a successful career. Even to those who agree that education is important, there is still the lingering question on the level of importance. Many learners and employment seekers have repeatedly been questioning the importance of education with respect to personal career in certain fields.

There are also questions touching on the role of education in determining the level of success in the business world and in improving the quality of life in general. Today, many people seeking certain job opportunities with some even possessing many years experience find themselves being rejected in favour of candidates possessing degrees in that field. (Santiago)

Depending on the height of achievement that one is seeking to accomplish, the echelon of education might be practical, but the most important thing to realize is that some level of education is vital to future success. In essence, completing high levels of education shows that one has an obligation and enthusiasm to study and apply the gotten information in their various areas of specialization.

Additionally, this also acts as proof that one is willing to use the acquired thoughts, theories, and principles to attain a variety of responsibilities and aspirations. Although there are obviously many reasons why people should advance their education, the most important is that education enables a person to acquire the subject substance and vital information needed in the day-to-day living. (Hartman & Stewart 283)

Today, many people are undoubtedly shunning formal employment in favour of starting up their own businesses. This has led many people to question the importance of academic excellence in the light of this new development. Contrary to this belief, attaining academic excellence especially in English and language skills helps people to communicate their ideas in a clearer manner.

This is gotten from the fact that communication skills are fundamental in any task, whether dealing with co-workers or even business associates. Indeed, one has to efficiently convey their plans, ideas, and goals if they are to become respected people in the society.

Currently, any formal learning incorporates communication skills thus articulating the importance of attaining academic excellence during the learning years. (Moxley & Dumbrigue 36)

Despite the revolution that computers and calculators have brought in the modern world, there is still the need to do basic adding up and calculations on paper or even using the mind. Regardless of the profession that one might be in, there will always arise moments when one has to employ basic math skills.

Lacking these skills can be a big impediment to attaining a fulfilling career or even for life. Indeed, nearly every chore in the life of a man requires some basic math skills. These are activities like preparing meals, shopping, driving among many other chores that people engage in on day-to-day basis.

Lacking the basic math skills can become a big source of frustration for the involved parties and can lead to huge losses in an organization or even in ones private life. (Hartman & Stewart 284)

Currently, nearly all the best paying jobs in the market require high level of learning. In fact, the world works on a basic principle that the more education that one has, then the higher level of earnings they are likely to attain.

This clearly shows that academic excellence is a prerequisite for attaining financial growth in any given career. In fact, trends show that people who attain great success in the business world were once successful in school. Currently, anyone thinking of landing a lucrative job in any major organization must be holding some noteworthy level of education. (Moxley & Dumbrigue 37)

Unlike in the past when certain positions within organizations did not necessarily require any college education, the situation has been reversed and these positions are currently only open to people possessing a certain level of academic qualification.

In any given organization, managers use educational requirements to reduce the number of applicants especially in situations where the number of those applying for the job is more than the available positions.

There are many explanations as to why managers prefer people with higher education but the most likely reason is that learned people are perceived to be ready to learn the procedures within the company since college education is all about learning new things.

Additionally, being in school allows one to interact with people from different backgrounds, which helps them to hone their communication skills thus making them to succeed in their respective careers and in the business world. (Santiago)

Over the years, there has been an ongoing debate on whether academic excellence is important for a successful career. There is no doubt that academic excellence leads to financial breakthroughs in whatever career that one might be pursuing. Even then, there is still the lingering question on the required level of education that one should have attained to make them qualify for certain positions in an organization.

Current trends however show that the range of salaries in organizations depends on the level of education that one has attained. Unlike in the past when some positions within organizations did not require any level of education, the situation has changed and academic excellence is needed to even allow one to set foot in these organizations.

Hartman, Kathleen and Stewart, Thomas. Investing in Your College Education: Learning Strategies with Readings, 2009. Cengage Learning, 283-284. Print.

Moxley, David and Dumbrigue, Cecille. Keeping Students in Higher Education: Successful Practices & Strategies for Retention, 2001. Routledge, 36-40. Print.

Santiago, Andrea. Why is Education so Important for Success? , 2011. Web.

• Internationalization of Education
• Design Theories in education
• Investigation of the Day-To-Day Life of Culture
• “In Favour of Ethics in Business: The Linkage Between Ethical Behaviour and Performance” by Upadhyay and Singh
• Why US Students Underperform in Math & Science
• Virtual Schooling Programs
• Blended/Hybrid Classes Implementation
• The Tracking System in Secondary School Education
• Standards Driven Process in Education
• Educators at Community and Junior Colleges
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, May 3). Role of Education for Successful Careers. https://ivypanda.com/essays/role-of-education-for-successful-careers-essay/

"Role of Education for Successful Careers." IvyPanda , 3 May 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/role-of-education-for-successful-careers-essay/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Role of Education for Successful Careers'. 3 May.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Role of Education for Successful Careers." May 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/role-of-education-for-successful-careers-essay/.

1. IvyPanda . "Role of Education for Successful Careers." May 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/role-of-education-for-successful-careers-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Role of Education for Successful Careers." May 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/role-of-education-for-successful-careers-essay/.

Essay on Indian Education System for Students and Children

500+ words essay on indian education system for students and children.

The Indian education system is quite an old education system that still exists. It has produced so many genius minds that are making India proud all over the world. However, while it is one of the oldest systems, it is still not that developed when compared to others, which are in fact newer. This is so as the other countries have gone through growth and advancement, but the Indian education system is still stuck in old age. It faces a lot of problems that need to be sorted to let it reach its full potential.

Problems with Indian Education System

Our Indian education system faces a lot of problems that do not let it prosper and help other children succeed in life . The biggest problem which it has to face is the poor grading system. It judges the intelligence of a student on the basis of academics which is in the form of exam papers. That is very unfair to students who are good in their overall performance but not that good at specific subjects.

Moreover, they only strive to get good marks not paying attention to understanding what is taught. In other words, this encourages getting good marks through mugging up and not actually grasping the concept efficiently.

Furthermore, we see how the Indian education system focuses on theory more. Only a little percentage is given for practical. This makes them run after the bookish knowledge and not actually applying it to the real world. This practice makes them perplexed when they go out in the real world due to lack of practical knowledge.

Most importantly, the Indian education system does not emphasize enough on the importance of sports and arts. Students are always asked to study all the time where they get no time for other activities like sports and arts.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

How Can We Improve Indian Education System?

As the Indian Education System is facing so many problems, we need to come up with effective solutions so it improves and creates a brighter future for students . We can start by focusing on the skill development of the students. The schools and colleges must not only focus on the ranks and grades but on the analytical and creative skills of children.

In addition, subjects must not be merely taught theoretically but with practical. This will help in a better understanding of the subject without them having to mug up the whole thing due to lack of practical knowledge. Also, the syllabus must be updated with the changing times and not follow the old age pattern.

Other than that, the government and private colleges must now increase the payroll of teachers. As they clearly deserve more than what they offer. To save money, the schools hire teachers who are not qualified enough. This creates a very bad classroom environment and learning. They must be hired if they are fit for the job and not because they are working at a lesser salary.

In conclusion, the Indian education system must change for the better. It must give the students equal opportunities to shine better in the future. We need to let go of the old and traditional ways and enhance the teaching standards so our youth can get create a better world.

FAQs on Indian Education System

Q.1 What problems does the Indian Education System face?

A.1 Indian education is very old and outdated. It judges students on the basis of marks and grades ignoring the overall performance of the student. It focuses on academics side-lining arts and sports.

Q.2 How can we improve the Indian education system?

A.2 The colleges and schools must hire well and qualified teachers. They must help students to understand the concept instead of merely mugging up the whole subject.

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Education in India – A Detailed Analysis

Last updated on July 24, 2024 by ClearIAS Team

This article is a detailed analysis of the Education System of India.

The post covers various aspects of the problems faced by the Indian Education sector, the Constitutional provisions related to education, and the education policies adopted by modern India.

Also read: Learning Poverty

Table of Contents

History of Education in India

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India has a rich tradition of imparting knowledge.

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The ‘gurukul’ was a type of education system in ancient India with shishya (students) living with the guru in the same house. Nalanda has the oldest university system of education in the world. Students from across the world were attracted to Indian knowledge systems.

Many branches of the knowledge system had their origin in India. Education was considered a higher virtue in ancient India.

However, the renaissance and scientific thinking as happened in Europe didn’t happen in India at that time.

The British who took control of the Indian affairs by that time had different priorities. Education in British India initially lagged a lot.

However, later, the British established the modern education system still followed in India. They replaced age-old systems of education in the country with English ways . 

Still, the education system in India needs a lot of reforms.

Also read: Examination System in India

Current Status of Education in India: Data from Census 2011

• Literacy rate in India as per Census 2011:  74%.
• Literacy rate: Male: 82.1%; Female: 65.5%
• Kerala tops the rankings, followed by Delhi, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu.
• Bihar is the lowest among states, followed by Arunachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, etc., however, they are improving their position.
• Bihar has a literacy rate of 63.8%, and that of women is 53.3%.
• Literacy rates for both adults as well as youths have increased, still, the absolute number of illiterates in India is as much as India’s population was at the time of independence.
• The gender gap in terms of literacy began to narrow first in 1991 and the pace has accelerated, however still lags far behind the global female literacy rate of 7% (UNESCO 2015).
• There are large state variations in the gender gap.
• However, during 2001 – 2011, the male literacy rate increased by 6 percentage points but female literacy increased by nearly 12 percentage points. Achievement in female literacy in Bihar is noteworthy: from 33% in 2001 to 53% in 2011.
• Be that as it may, India is still lagging behind the world  literacy rate of 86.3%(UNESCO 2015).  A major group of states lies in the average rank i.e. just above the national level of 64.8 percent.  

Indian Education System: The Present Pyramidal Structure

The Indian education system can broadly be considered as a pyramidal structure:

• Pre-primary level: 5-6 years of age.
• Primary (elementary) level: 6-14 years of age. Elementary-level education is guaranteed by our constitution under Article 21 A . For this level, the government has introduced Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) under the Right To Education(RTE) Act.
• Secondary level: Age group between 14-18. For this level, the government has extended SSA to secondary education in the form of the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan .
• Higher education: generally of three levels: UG→ PG→ MPhil/PhD. To cater to the requirements of higher education, the government has introduced Rashtriya Uchhattar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA).

Read: Examination System in India

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) related to Education

Goal 4 of SDG : Education for all – ensures equitable, inclusive, and quality education along with the promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030.

Provisions in the Indian Constitution related to Education

• Under  Article 45 in DPSP , it was mentioned that the government should provide free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14 years within 10 years from the commencement of the Constitution. As this was not achieved, Article 21A was introduced by  the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act of 2002 , making elementary education a fundamental right rather than a directive principle. Article 45 was amended to provide for early childhood care and education to children below the age of six years.
• To implement Article 21A, the government legislated the RTE Act. Under this act, SSA – Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – got a further impetus. SSA aims to provide Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE) in a time-bound manner.
• SSA has been operational since 2000-2001. Its roots go back to 1993-1994 when the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) was launched. However, under the RTE Act, it got legal backing.

RTE Act 2009

• 86th Amendment Act 2002 introduced Article 21-A, which provides for free and compulsory education of all children in the age group of six to fourteen years as a Fundamental Right.
• The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act was enacted to implement this fundamental right.

Provisions of the RTE Act

• ‘Compulsory education’ means an obligation of the government to provide free elementary education and ensure compulsory admission, attendance, and completion of  elementary education.
• Provision for a non-admitted child to be admitted to an age-appropriate class.
• Rational deployment of teachers, ensuring that there is no urban-rural imbalance in their postings.
• Prohibition of deployment of teachers for non-educational work, other than services like decennial census, elections, etc.
• It prohibits (a) physical punishment and mental harassment (b) screening procedures for admission of children (c) capitation fees (d) private tuition by teachers (e) running of schools without recognition.
• Development of curriculum in consonance with the values enshrined in the constitution, ensuring all-around development of the child, building a system of child-friendly and child-centered learning.
• To further inclusiveness, 25% reservation is provided for disadvantaged students in private schools.

Criticisms of the RTE Act

• Even though the RTE + SSA have increased access to schools, resulting in a high enrollment rate, dropout rates increased in tandem. However, there is inadequate attention given to this scenario.
• There is a fear of financial burden on the government for teacher recruitment and training.
• The grey area of teacher transfer is also not helping the cause.
• Since all state holidays are not relevant for all localities, such a calendar preparation by local authorities can increase attendance and can also encourage local panchayats to take ownership of schools.
• RTE students in private schools are paying extra fees as the schools claim that the government fund provided for the same is not adequate.
• Most private schools treat RTE as charity and demand that the onus of universalizing education should be on the government’s head rather than putting pressure on them.
• 70% of students are in government schools. So it must be fixed in priority, by providing infrastructure , teacher quality , and targeted   learning  for children from  disadvantaged  groups to provide an equitable education system.
• Under the RTE Act, till class 8, students should not be failed in exams. This is called the No detention policy. It had reduced dropout rates.
• There is growing criticism of the policy resulting in reducing the quality of elementary education. Hence the RTE Act was amended to scrap the policy.
• RTE Act prioritized schooling of children only from the age of 6, thus ignoring pre-school education. Kothari Commission had recommended the establishment of a center for the development of pre-primary education in each district.
• District Information System for Education (DISE) report states that 30% of primary and 15% of upper primary schools have higher PTRs.
• According to the Economic Survey 2018-19, the PTR at the national level for primary schools is 23 and 27 for secondary schools. Thus PTR appears to be satisfactory, as there are sufficient teachers. However, the main issue is a balanced deployment of teachers based on student strength.
• Even though the Student-Classroom ratio (SCR) improved in almost all of the States, there is disparity across the country.

Modern Education in India: The Evolution of the System through various policies

The British government had introduced modern education in India. From Macaulay’s minutes to Wood’s dispatch to several commissions like the Sadler Commission, 1904 Indian education policy, etc. built the foundation of the Indian education system during the colonial period.

Radhakrishnan committee

In 1948-49, the University Education Commission was constituted under Radhakrishnan . It molded the education system based on the needs of an independent India. The pre-Independent Indian education value system was catering to colonial masters. There was a need to replace Macaulayism  with the Indian value system.  ( Macaulayism is the policy of eliminating indigenous culture through the planned substitution of the alien culture of a colonizing power via the education system). Some of the values mentioned in the commission were:

• Wisdom and Knowledge 
• Aims of the Social Order : the desired social order for which youths are being educated.
• Love for higher values in life
• Training for Leadership

The Independent Indian education system developed along the lines of this value framework. In the present times, where there are imminent threats of political ideologies hijacking the pedagogy of education and commercialization of education eroding value systems, it is appreciable to dust off the values promulgated by the commission. A recent controversial circular by the Central University of Kerala (CUK), directing that research topics for Ph.D. students must be by ‘national priorities’, and research in ‘irrelevant topics’ and ‘privilege areas’ must be discouraged, is a case in point.

Kothari commission

If the Radhakrishnan committee charted out the value system of the Indian education system, it was the Kothari Commission that provided the basic framework of the same. The commission provided for:

• Standardization of educational system on 10+2+3 pattern.
• Emphasized the need to make work experience and social/national service an integral part of education.
• Linking of colleges to several schools in the neighborhood.
• Equalization of opportunities to all and to achieve social and national integration .
• Neighborhood school system without social or religious segregation and a s chool complex system integrating  primary and secondary levels of education.
• Establishment of Indian Education Service.
• On-the-job training of the teaching staff and efforts to raise the status of the teachers to attract talents into the profession.
• To raise expenditure on education from 2.9% of the GDP to 6% by 1985.

This committee report paved the way for the National Educational Policy 1968 which provided the base and roadmap for further development of the education system in India.

National Educational Policy 1968

• The policy provided for “radical restructuring” and  equalization of educational opportunities to achieve national integration and greater cultural and economic development.
• Increase public expenditure on education to 6% of GDP.
• Provide for better training and qualification of teachers.
• Three-language formula : state governments should implement the study of a modern Indian language, preferably one of the southern languages, apart from Hindi and English in the Hindi-speaking states, and of Hindi along with the regional language and English in the non-Hindi-speaking states. Hindi was encouraged uniformly to promote a common language for all Indians.

National Educational Policy 1985

• The policy aimed at the removal of disparities and to equalize educational opportunities, especially for women, SC and ST.
• Launching of “Operation Blackboard”  to improve primary schools nationwide.
• IGNOU, the Open University, was formed.
• Adoption of the “rural university” model , based on the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, to promote economic and social development at the grassroots level in rural India.

T.S.R.Subramanium committee report

• ECCE is inconsistent across states. So all government schools should have facilities for pre-primary education, which would facilitate pre-school education by the government instead of the private sector.
• The policy of no detention should be upheld only till class five and not till class eight.
• There is a steep rise in teacher shortage, absenteeism, and grievances.
• Need to constitute an Autonomous Teacher Recruitment Board.
• Four years integrated B.Ed. the course should be introduced.
• There is an inadequate integration of information technology (IT) and the education sector.
• The National Skills Qualification Framework should be scaled up.
• The choice of vocational courses should be in line with local opportunities and resources . 
• Bringing formal certification for vocational education at par with conventional education certificates.
• All India Education Service.
• Existing separate laws governing individual regulators in higher education should be replaced by the said act.
• The role of existing regulatory bodies like UGC and AICTE should be revised.
• National Accreditation Board (NAB) subsuming the existing accreditation bodies.

Kasturirangan Report On School Education (Draft National Education Policy)

For restructuring the education system in India, the government is preparing to roll out a New Education Policy that will cater to Indian needs in the 4th Industrial Revolution by making use of its demographic dividend. Committee for Draft National Education Policy (chaired by Dr. K. Kasturirangan) submitted its report on May 31, 2019.

You can read about the National Education Policy 2020 in detail here .

School Education: 

• Low accessibility.
• The curriculum doesn’t meet the developmental needs of children.
• Lack of qualified and trained teachers.
• Substandard pedagogy.
• Currently, most early childhood education is delivered through anganwadis and private preschools. However, there has been less focus on the educational aspects of early childhood.
• Guidelines for up to three-year-old children.
• Educational framework for three to eight-year-old children.
• This would be implemented by improving and expanding the Anganwadi system and co-locating anganwadis with primary schools.
• Expanding the ambit of the Act to all children between the ages of three to 18 years, thus including early childhood education and secondary school education.
• There should be no detention of children till class eight. Instead, schools must ensure that children are achieving age-appropriate learning levels.
• The current structure of school education is to be restructured based on the development needs of students.
• 10+2+3 structure to be replaced by 5-3-3-4 design comprising: (i) five years of foundational stage (three years of pre-primary school and classes one and two), (ii) three years of preparatory stage (classes three to five), (iii) three years of middle stage (classes six to eight), and (iv) four years of secondary stage (classes nine to 12).
• The current education system solely focuses on rote learning. The curriculum load should be reduced to its essential core content.
• Force students to concentrate only on a few subjects.
• Do not test learning in a formative manner.
• Cause stress among students.
• To track students’ progress throughout their school experience, State Census Examinations in classes three, five, and eight should be established.
• Restructure the board examinations to test only the core concept. These board examinations will be on a range of subjects. The students can choose their subjects and the semester when they want to take these board exams. The in-school final examinations may be replaced by these board examinations.
• Although establishing primary schools in every habitation has increased access to education, it has led to the development of very small schools making it operationally complex. Hence the multiple public schools should be brought together to form a school complex .
• A complex will consist of one secondary school (classes nine to twelve) and all the public schools in its neighborhood that offer education from pre-primary to class eight.
• These will also include anganwadis, vocational education facilities, and an adult education center.
• Each school complex will be a semi-autonomous unit providing integrated education across all stages from early childhood to secondary education.
• This will ensure that resources such as infrastructure and trained teachers can be efficiently shared across a school complex.
• A steep rise in a teacher shortage, lack of professionally qualified teachers, and deployment of teachers for non-educational purposes have plagued the system.
• Teachers should be deployed with a particular school complex for at least five to seven years.
• They will not be allowed to participate in any non-teaching activities during school hours.
• Existing B.Ed. the program will be replaced by a four-year integrated B.Ed. program that combines high-quality content, pedagogy, and practical training. An integrated continuous professional development will also be developed for all subjects.
• Separating the regulation of schools from aspects such as policymaking, school operations, and academic development.
• Independent State School Regulatory Authority for each state will prescribe basic uniform standards for public and private schools.
• The Department of Education of the State will formulate policy and conduct monitoring and supervision.

Higher Education

• According to the All India Survey on Higher Education , the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education in India has increased from 20.8% in 2011-12 to 25.8% in 2017-18. Lack of access is a major reason behind the low intake of higher education. The policy aims to increase GER to 50% by 2035.
• Multiple regulators with overlapping mandates reduce the autonomy of higher educational institutions and create an environment of dependency and centralized decision-making.
• The National Higher Education Regulatory Authority (NHERA) should replace the existing individual regulators in higher education. Thus the role of all professional councils such as AICTE would be limited to setting standards for professional practice. The role of the UGC will be limited to providing grants.
• Separate the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) from the UGC into an independent and autonomous body. It will function as the top-level accreditor and will issue licenses to different accreditation institutions. All existing higher education institutions should be accredited by 2030.
• Replacing the current system of establishing higher educational institutions by Parliament or state legislatures. Instead, institutions can be set up through a Higher Education Institution Charter from NHERA.
• Research universities focus equally on research and teaching.
• Universities focus primarily on teaching.
• Colleges focus only on teaching at undergraduate levels.
• All such institutions will gradually move towards full autonomy.
• Total investment in research and innovation in India has declined from 0.84% of GDP in 2008 to 0.69% in 2014. India also lags behind many nations in the number of researchers, patents, and publications.
• NRF will act as an autonomous body for funding, mentoring, and building the capacity for quality research.
• Undergraduate programs should be made interdisciplinary by redesigning their curriculum to include: a common core curriculum; and one/two area(s) of specialization.
• Introduce four-year undergraduate programs in Liberal Arts.
• By the next five years, five Indian Institutes of Liberal Arts must be set up as model multidisciplinary liberal arts institutions.
• Poor service conditions and heavy teaching loads, augmented by a lack of autonomy and no clear career progression system, have resulted in low faculty motivation.
• Introduction of a Continuous Professional Development program and permanent employment track system for faculty in all higher education institutions by 2030.
• The student-teacher ratio of not more than 30:1 must be ensured.
• All higher education institutions must have complete autonomy on curricular, pedagogical, and resource-related matters.

Read: Institutions of Eminence Scheme

Additional Key Focus Areas:

Additional key focus areas are (1) Technology in Education (2) Vocational Education (3) Adult Education and (4) the Promotion of Indian Languages.

Technology in Education

• Improving the classroom process of teaching, learning, and evaluation
• Aiding teacher training.
• Improving access to education.
• Improving the overall planning, administration, and management of the entire education system.
• Electrification of all educational institutions paves the way for technology induction.
• An autonomous body, the National Education Technology Forum, set up under the Mission, will facilitate decision-making on the use of technology.
• Single online digital repository to make available copyright-free educational resources in multiple languages.

Vocational Education

• Less than 5% of the workforce in the age group of 19-24 receives vocational education in India, in contrast to 52% in the USA, 75% in Germany and 96% in South Korea.
• Vocational courses : All school students must receive vocational education in at least one vocation in grades 9 to 12.
• Higher Education Institutions must offer vocational courses that are integrated into undergraduate education programs.
• The draft Policy targets to offer vocational education to up to 50% of the total enrolment in higher education institutions by 2025, up from the present level of enrolment of below 10%.
• National Committee for the Integration of Vocational Education for charting out plans for the above objectives.

Adult Education

As per Census 2011, India had a total of 26.5 crore adult non-literate (15 years and above).

• Establishing an autonomous  Central Institute of Adult Education as a constituent unit of NCERT. It will develop a National Curriculum Framework for adult education.
• Adult Education Centers will be included within the school complexes.
• Relevant courses are made available at the National Institute of Open Schooling.
• National Adult Tutors Programme to build a cadre of adult education instructors and managers.

Education and Indian Languages

• The medium of instruction must be the mother tongue until grade 5, and preferably until grade 8.
• 3 language formula be continued and flexibility in the implementation of the formula should be provided. Implementation of the formula needs to be strengthened, particularly in Hindi-speaking states. Schools in Hindi-speaking areas should also teach Indian languages from other parts of India for national integration.
• To promote Indian languages, a National Institute for Pali, Persian, and Prakrit will be set up.
• The mandate of the Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology will be expanded to include all fields and disciplines to strengthen vocabulary in Indian languages.

Transforming Education

The policy talked about the synergistic functioning of India’s education system, to deliver equity and excellence at all levels, from vision to implementation, led by a new Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog.

Education Governance

Revitalize education governance by bringing in synergy and coordination among the different ministries, departments, and agencies.

• Constitute the National Education Commission or Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog, as an apex body for education headed by the Prime Minister. It would be responsible for developing, implementing, evaluating, and revising the vision of education and overseeing the implementation and functioning of bodies including the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), National Higher Education Regulatory Authority, and National Research Foundation.
• The Ministry of Human Resources and Development must be renamed the Ministry of Education to bring the focus back on education.

Financing Education

• The Draft Policy reaffirmed the commitment to spending 6% of GDP as a public investment in education.
• The draft Policy seeks to double the public investment in education from the current 10% of total public expenditure to 20% in the next 10 years. 5% will be utilized for higher education, 2% in school education, and 1.4% for early childhood care and education.
• There should be optimal and timely utilization of funds through the institutional development plans and by plugging loopholes in the disbursement of funds.

Criticism of the New Education Policy of India

• The New Education Policy lacks operational details.
• It is not clear from where the funding will be sourced.
• Enough importance is not given to innovation, startup culture or economic principles to be added to the curriculum.
• One-size-fits for all states can’t be a solution as each state in India is diverse in its educational needs. Controversy on NEET has shown this.
• With technological advancement and the democratization of knowledge, the policy should have focused more on how to teach rather than what to teach.
• Economic Survey 2017-18 mentioned the perils of the distinction between research institutions and universities in higher education. The policy recommendation of three distinct higher education institutions of research universities, teaching universities, and teaching colleges will further augment the gap between research and universities.
• The draft policy is silent on the Institutions of Eminence and agencies like the Higher Education Funding Agency.
• The role of Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog should be defined clearly. What would be its role vis-a-vis existing regulators? Also, there are criticisms from some quarters that RSA will open the door to the politicization of education.
• Earlier the 3-language formula proposed by the draft policy made Hindi compulsory in non-Hindi speaking states. However, after the furor, the proposal was removed.
• Even though the policy talks about bringing “unrepresented groups” into school and focusing on educationally lagging “ special education zones” , it doesn’t comprehensively address the inequalities prevalent in the system. It misses methods to bridge the gaps between rich and poor children.
• The policy proposes to remove the provision mandating that primary schools be within stipulated distance from students’ homes and common minimum infrastructure and facility standards that should be met by all schools. If a common minimum standard is not specified, it will create an environment where quality in some schools will fall further thus augmenting the inequalities between schools across the country.

India’s education history is rich with ambitious policies failing at the altar of inadequate implementation of the same. In the absence of a handholding mechanism for states to embark on the path-breaking reforms mentioned in the policy and that too in a short time, will be too much to ask.

Funding requirements and governance architecture pose major challenges in the implementation of the policy. Political commitment is required to increase funding. RTE Act expansion to include preschool should keep in mind the present infrastructure inadequacies and teacher vacancies.

Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog may face administrative problems and turf battles. Also, it will raise questions on the role of new bodies like the National Medical Council.

The recent controversy on 3 language formula shows the sensitivity of language education in India and care should be taken to appreciate the emotional overtures while implementing the same.

Politically acceptability, social desirability, technological feasibility, financial viability, administratively doability, and judicially tenability are 6 pillars that will impact the implementation of the policy.

Be that as it may, the new education policy aims to address the challenges of (i) access, (ii) equity, (iii) quality, (iv) affordability, and (v) accountability faced by the current education system. It aims to revitalize and equip the education system to meet the challenges of the 21st century and 4th industrial revolution rather than catering to 19th and 20th century needs of industrialization. Also, India is on the cusp of a demographic dividend, rather than entered into this phase. So the education system catering to these needs is not a luxury that we hope for but rather a dire need at this moment in Indian history.

The Problems associated with the Education System in India

HRD ministry: Over 1.4 million schools and 50,000 higher educational institutions are operating in India. Out of 907 universities, there are 399 state universities, 126 deemed-to-be universities, 48 central and 334 private universities.

• Even after more than a hundred years of “ Gokhale’s Bill”1911, where universal primary education was originally mooted, India is yet to achieve this goal.
• China had achieved it in the 1970s. As per Census 2011, over 26% of India’s population is still illiterate, compared to 4% in China. About 50% of India’s population has only primary education or less, compared to 38% in China. The 13% of the population with tertiary education at the upper end in India is comparable with China.
• Progress has been made in respect of female participation up to secondary level and GER for girls has exceeded that of boys.
• But the girl’s enrollment rate is lower than that of boys at the higher education level.
• A gap is visible across social categories in terms of enrollment rate at the higher education level.
• According to NSSO’s 71st round (2014), drop-out rates are very high for boys at the secondary school level. Reasons for the same are economic activities, lack of interest in education, and financial constraints.
• The transition rate from secondary school to senior secondary and further to higher education is very low.

Despite these highly ambitious education policies and elaborate deliberations on the same, the outcomes are rather shaky. Major criticisms and shortcomings of these policies and their implementations are:

• Half the population is crowded at the bottom, either illiterate or with only primary education. Meanwhile, a disproportionately large segment is at the upper end with tertiary education.
• The 2015 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) reflects this deteriorating quality. The report opines that deficits in foundational reading and arithmetic skills are   cumulative, which leaves students grossly   handicapped for further education .
• India had fared poorly in the Programme for International Student Assessment  (PISA) test in 2008, and 09.
• Education policies in India are focused on inputs rather than on learning outcomes.
• Teacher shortages.
• Local politics.
• Corruption in teacher appointment.
• Defects in teacher training.
• Socio-cultural factors like caste division, and cynical attitude towards the teaching profession.
• There is no accountability, as there is a guaranteed lifetime job independent of performance.
• From 1952-2012 , education expenditure as a percentage of total government expenditure increased from 7.92 to 11.7, and as a percentage of GDP increased from 0.64 to 3.31. But it has still not reached 6% of GDP, as was recommended by the Kothari Commission way back in 1964.
• Expenditure by the government on elementary education is more than tertiary level, but expenditure per student is more in tertiary. So there is a need to increase expenditure in all segments.
• All India survey on higher education has shown that in West Bengal Muslim students in universities are very low. Lack of education at the primary and secondary levels is said to be the main reason.
• Even though Article 15(4),(5) provides reservations for SC, ST, and OBC in higher education institutions , the Economic Survey 2018-19 points out their inadequate representation in these institutions.
• The suicide of Rohit Vemula, a Ph.D. scholar at the University of Hyderabad, in 2016 had brought forward the discrimination still existing in these institutions.
• Also, the representation of teachers at these levels is skewed against the backward class in spite of reservations. Article 16(4) provides for reservations of backward class in jobs.
• At the school level, poor children are primarily concentrated in government schools. The poor quality of government schools thus disproportionately affects these children and creates a vicious cycle of illiteracy.
• At the higher education level, the situation is more critical. One reason for the introduction of the National Medical Commission Bill is to curb the exorbitant fees charged by medical colleges.
• Youths coming out of the higher education system in India are not employable, as they lack relevant industry-level skills.
• India’s long-standing neglect of primary and secondary education has limited access to quality basic education. No skill development program can succeed without an underlying foundation of basic education.
• National Policy on  Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015 (PMKVY) has shown disappointing results.
• Budget 2019-20  stated that the government enables about 10 million youth to take up industry-relevant skill training through the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY). The  Budget has also increased focus on  ‘new-age skills’  like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, 3D Printing, Virtual Reality, and Robotic.
• Currently, B Tech courses in AI are offered mostly in premier institutions only.
• The budget 2019-20 proposed the National Sports Education Board for the development of sportspersons under the  Khelo India program (2017).

Now we will look at each rung of the education ladder in India.

Early childhood education

• Early childhood education (ECE) is needed for  cognitive development in the early stage.
• Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS)  has a component for providing ECE through Anganwadis . But lack of effective regulation in this sector is eroding the quality of ECE.
• There is a National Early Childhood Care and Education Policy 2013 . However, the policy has not been properly implemented.
• There are multiple service providers but there is no clarity in the types of services provided.
• The sprawling of an unregulated private channel, both organized and unorganized, which is also spreading to rural areas, has led to inequitable access, uneven quality, and commercialization of ECE.
• Both Anganwadis and private schools focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic rather than cognitive and conceptual development.
• There is a decline in the quality and training of teachers.
• S.R. Subramanian’s committee report has brought focus to the quality deterioration in this sector.

Primary level

• There is an increasing trend of parents choosing private schools for the primary level. However, there is variable quality in private schools. Also, fees vary from school to school and are on the higher side.
• Eschew rigid curricula and make them more cognitive and flexible. There should be a broader cognitive approach than rote learning.
• There is a need for activity-based learning. Teachers should teach at the right level, rather than teaching for the average learner.
• The government has launched Padhe Bharat Bade Bharat –  targeting early reading and writing. The twin-track  approach of comprehension and math is the main focus.
• There is a supply-side problem . The government is pumping funds through government schools thus increasing the number of schools and thus enrollment. However, quality and inclusiveness have dropped and dropout rates increased. These lead to poor learning outcomes.

School Complex

• RTE and SSA have resulted in over-access but low-quality primary-level education. Now the aim should be to integrate these into school complexes, as mentioned by the Kasturirangan committee report, thus rationalizing the number of schools in an area.
• The ‘Adarsh’ integrated school system of Rajasthan is an example of a school complex system . Here one school provides classes from l to XII under one principal. There is one such school in every gram panchayat.
• This is an efficient way to solve teacher shortages and also to address the shortages of secondary schools. It can also address the problem of resource scarcity by integrating and rationalizing resources.
• Inclusive learning can be furthered through school.
• Also, these complexes can act as a pivot around which new reforms in education can be implemented.

Secondary level

ASER Rural 2017: In 2017, ASER changed the age group of the survey from primary level to secondary level. The report mentions the following:

• Enrollment is low in this age group. There is a high digital divide at this level. Low quality also persists at this level. There is a high amount of absenteeism as well.
• There is a need to expand RTE to cover the 14-18 age groups.
• To realize the demographic dividend, skill education for these groups is necessary.

Economic Survey 2018-19 points out that Indian demography is changing and it requires more quality secondary education system rather than merely an increasing number of primary-level schools.

Private fees

• The vagueness in the judgment regarding ‘reasonable surplus’ and ‘commercialization’ of education has watered down the outcome of the judgment.
• There are state laws for capping fees. However, implementation problems and litigation make them ineffective.
• CAG report mentioned misreporting and mismanagement by private schools. So laws should address this problem through stricter inspection, penalties, etc.

Higher education

There is an increasing number of higher education institutions but their quality is questionable, effectively making ‘islands of excellence amidst the sea of mediocrity. Increased accessibility to a low-quality higher education system has made democratization of mediocrity.

Raghuram Rajan, the ex-RBI governor, argued that India needs idea factories and universities by leveraging India’s inherent strengths like tolerance, diversity, etc. He said that there is a need for strong accreditation agencies and continuing education.

Problems of the higher education system in India

• There is a dual problem of both quality and quantity. The gross enrollment ratio (GER) in higher education is only 24.5.
• Even though education policy had an elitist bias in favor of higher education, the state of the same is much worse than the state of school education. Unlike school education, there is no national survey of the learning levels of college students.
• The desired levels of research and internationalization of Indian campuses remain weak points.
• Also, there is a low philanthropic investment in this sector. This creates an exclusive dependency on government funding by universities. This, in turn, reduces the autonomy and vision of these universities.
• Privatization of higher education has not been led by philanthropy but the commercial interest that does not have a symbiotic relationship with the vision of universities.
• These have led to inadequate human capacity, shoddy infrastructure, and weak institutions. Recommendations of the Narayana Murthy committee,  on the role of the corporate sector in higher education, have not been implemented and thus channeling of CSR funds to higher education remains inadequate.
• Banks and financial institutions are not giving adequate attention to this area. Giving PSL status to these institutions can be considered.
• Indian higher education system is of a linear model with very little focus on specialization.
• UGC and AICTE act more as controllers of education than facilitators.
• Due to the mushrooming of colleges at a higher rate since the 1980s , there is a regulatory sprawl in higher education.
• Poor governance , with mindless  over-regulation , is widespread in this sector. Educational institutions responded to this with claims of academic and institutional autonomy for themselves, which was mostly a smokescreen for a culture of sloth in these institutions.
• There is a concentration of powers, as these regulatory institutions control all aspects like accreditation, curriculum setting, professional standard-setting, funding, etc.
• Compartmentalization and fragmentation of the knowledge system.
• Disconnect with society.
• Overemphasis on entrance tests.
• Absence of innovation in learning methods.
• Corrosion of autonomy of universities.
• For long basic disciplines across the physical and social sciences and humanities were ignored.
• However, the Economic Survey 2017-18 mentioned that there is an increase in Ph.D. enrolment in India in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) due to efforts by the government to increase the number and quantum of fellowships. However, there are still fewer researchers in India in comparison to other countries.
• Budget 2019-20 proposes ‘Study in India’  with a focus on bringing foreign students to higher educational institutions in India to make India a “hub of higher education.”
• Higher education institutions are used as rewards for loyalists and channels of graft by political parties in power.
• Indian higher education system is plagued by unregulated and shoddy coaching institutions. The coaching industry makes around Rs. 24000 crores a year in India. Proper regulation of the same is required.

Research and development (R&D)

Economic Survey 2017-18 stated: “To transform from net consumer to net producer of knowledge, India should invest in educating its youth in science and mathematics, reform the way R&D is conducted, engage the private sector and the Indian diaspora, and take a more mission-driven approach in areas such as dark matter, genomics, energy storage, agriculture, and mathematics and cyber-physical systems”.

• Although Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) is consistently increasing, as a fraction of GDP it has been stagnant between 0.6-0.7  percent of GDP over the past two decades.
• The universities play a relatively small role in the research activities in India. There is a disconnection between research institutes and universities. This results in the compartmentalization of research activities and teaching into two separate silos.
• The  separation of research from teaching leads to a situation where universities  have students but need additional faculty support, while research institutes have qualified faculty but are starved of young students.
• India was, at one point, spending more on R&D as a percentage of GDP than countries like China – but currently, India under-spends on R&D.
• Doubling of R&D spending is necessary and much of the increase should come from the private sector and universities.

The need of the hour

• It is imperative to improve math and cognitive skills at the school level to make a difference at a higher level.
• There is a need to expand R&D in India and to go beyond paper presentations and patents to a broader contribution of providing value for society.
• There is also a need to encourage Investigator-led Research for funding science research.  Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) 2008,  a statutory body of DST, is a step in the right direction.
• 50:50 partnerships with SERB for industry-relevant research under the Ucchatar Avishkar Yojana (UAY) is the right way to go forward.
• It would strengthen state universities and provide knowledge in areas specific to a state.
• National Research Foundation,  to fund, coordinate, and promote research at the college level, is proposed by the Kasturirangan report. It is reiterated in Budget 2019-20 : NRF will ensure the overall research ecosystem in the country is strengthened with a focus on areas relevant to national priorities without duplication of effort and expenditure. The funds available with all Ministries will be integrated into NRF.
• Link national labs to universities and create new knowledge ecosystems. Together they can link up with the commercial sectors and help develop industrial clusters.
• National Mission on Dark Matter
• National Mission on Genomics
• National Mission on Energy Storage Systems
• National Mission on Mathematics
• National Mission on Cyber-Physical Systems
• National Mission on Agriculture
• Ramanujan Fellowship Scheme.
• Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research ( INSPIRE ) Faculty Scheme.
• Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship.
• Visiting Advanced Joint Research Faculty Scheme ( VAJRA ).
• Improve the culture of research thus ‘ ease of doing research’. There is a need for less hierarchical governance systems that encourage risk-taking and curiosity in the pursuit of excellence.
• Greater public engagement of the science and research establishment is needed. A greater effort at science communication  is needed.

Government initiatives on higher education

The government is trying to revitalize the Indian higher education system and for this many initiatives have been launched. Let’s discuss the importance of them.

National Testing Agency (NTA) 2017

• NTA was set up for conducting entrance exams in higher educational institutions. It is based on the recommendations of the Ashok Mishra committee on IIT entrance 2015.
• It will conduct JEE, NEET, National Eligibility Test (NET), Common Management Admission Test (CMAT), and Graduate Pharmacy Aptitude Test (GPAT).
• It will provide diversity and plurality in higher education. It will also ensure independence and transparency in conducting the exams.
• However, it should be ensured that the computer-based test should not lead to further exploitation of rural students.
• NEET stands for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test . It is for admissions in medical courses by replacing a plethora of medical entrance tests with one national-level test.
• Supreme Court had said that NEET should be the sole basis for admission to medical courses.
• There is a controversy about whether urban and CBSE students will dominate NEET. The government should pay heed to this criticism.
• In Tamil Nadu doctors serving in rural areas get weightage in PG admission. NEET will effectively dislodge this system.
• This controversy brought forward the conflict between the fair and transparent system of admission to curb the commercialization of medical education and the socioeconomic goals of the state, which in the case of Tamil Nadu includes ensuring enough doctors for rural areas.
• Controversy on NEET has brought the following question to the limelight: should uniformity be thrust upon a country with such vast disparity and diversity? The political leadership should iron out the differences and produce a suitable admission policy. This task should not be left to the judiciary.
• Be that as it may, states can’t remain insulated from the need to upgrade their education standard.

RUSA: Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan 2013

• About 94 % of students in higher education study in 369 State universities, whereas less than 6% of students study in 150 Centrally-funded institutions.
• 11th 5-year plan  (2007-12) opined that the center’s bias towards premier central institutions had skewed funding for these institutions mainly and thus neglected state-level institutions.
• State investment in higher education was declining. UGC’s system of direct release of funds to State institutions bypassing State governments also leads to a sense of alienation for the states.
• RUSA tried to correct this bias. The scheme aims at financing state institutions concerning their governance and performance.
• RUSA has shown the result in increasing the performance of state institutions and changing the way regulators function for the good. State Higher Education Council(SHEC)  made medium-long-term state perspective plans.
• Cabinet in 2018 decided to continue the scheme. A renewed focus by the center on RUSA will be a success only if it is impartially administered and states are willing to heed the advice of SHEC.

HECI: Higher Education Commission of India bill

• On the recommendation of the Yashpal Committee 2010 for renovation and rejuvenation of higher education, the National Commission on Higher Education and Research bill was introduced but was not passed.
• HECI was proposed to act as an overarching regulator of higher education by replacing UGC, which will maintain academic standards, approve new educational institutions, etc. but with no funding powers.
• Draft Higher Education Commission of India (Repeal of University Grants Commission Act) Bill, 2018 was introduced in 2018. Budget 2019-20 proposed to bring a bill on HECI this year.
• The draft bill had separated funding and placed it under MHRD. This was criticized for the fear of increasing political control and reducing the autonomy of universities.

IoE: Institutions of Eminence 2017

• Around 2005, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the QS World University Rankings started, and in 2009 the Academic Ranking of World Universities started. From India, only the Indian Institute of Science was included in the top 500 every year. This prompted the government to introduce NIRF and IoE.
• Under IoE, UGC was tasked to select 10 government universities and 10 private ones as IoE. These would be given autonomy in operations.
• Selected government institutions would be provided with ₹1,000 crore over five years.
• The IoE tag is expected to help them achieve the world’s top 500 higher education institutions in a decade and later into the top 100.
• Institutes among the top 50 in the National Institute Ranking Framework rankings or in the top 500 in international ratings were eligible.
• The model for the sector remains dependent on state patronage.
• Entry into the global education race could now become an overriding concern when many systemic issues are plaguing the sector.
• Funding only for public institutions is discriminatory.
• Humanities institutions were neglected.
• Transparency in the selection process, and the public sharing of benchmarks and guidelines. The furor over the selection of Jio Institute, even before it functioned, had attracted many eyeballs and criticisms.
• Separate category to include sectoral institutions like IIM.

National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2015

NIRF is a methodology adopted by the MHRD to rank higher education institutions in India.

• NIRF is common for public and private institutions as well as state and central institutions. Comparison of state-level colleges with central and private colleges may lead to a vicious cycle of low funding, poor performance, and low ranks among state-level institutions because of the resource gap.
• So performance index values should be normalized concerning investments and resources that have gone into that institution. Also should consider making another ranking system for state-level institutions.

HEFA: Higher Education Financing Agency 2018

Introduced in Budget 2018-19, HEFA is a joint venture of MHRD and Canara Bank

• With an initial capital base of Rs 1,000 crores, it will act as a not-for-profit organization that will leverage funds from the market and supplement them with donations and CSR funds. These funds will be used to finance improvement in infrastructure in top institutions.
• It has been tasked with raising ₹1 lakh crore to finance infrastructure improvements in higher education by 2022.

 Foreign Education Providers Bill 2013 

• There is no account of programs delivered by foreign universities in India. Inadequate regulation has led to low-quality courses offered in this sector.
• The foreign Institution bill was not been able to pass in Parliament. However,

EQUIP report has mentioned the revival of this bill.

There are many other schemes and initiatives like SWAYAM, which offers open online courses from Class IX to post-graduation free of cost, GIAN and IMPRINT which are primarily focused on elite institutes like IITs and IISc.

APAAR: One Nation One Student ID Card

The Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) is a transformative initiative introduced in alignment with the National Education Policy (NEP) of 2020 and the National Credit and Qualifications Framework (NCrF).

It aims to provide a unified and accessible academic experience for students across India by assigning a unique and permanent 12-digit ID to every student, consolidating their academic achievements in one place.

Other Major Issues connected with the Education sector in India

The Indian education sector is also affected by other issues like the politicization of campuses, gender parity problems, poor-quality standards, etc.

Politicization of campuses

• JP movement had provided an impetus to the politicization of students.
• In Indian higher education institutions, university politics has become a launchpad for political ambitions.
• Though campus politics is vital for democracy, as it makes students better citizens, the negative side of the politicization of campuses has been visible across Indian campuses. Recent incidents at Kerala University are a case in point.
• One of the most important problems of student politics in India is that it acts as an appendage to political parties without having an independent identity or autonomy.

Gender Parity

• By parents → who send boys to private and girls to government schools. Economic Survey 2018-19: enrollment of girls is higher than that of boys in government schools but the pattern gets reversed in private schools. The gender gap in enrollment in private schools has consistently increased across age groups.
• By teachers → who reinforced the belief that boys are quick learners.
• Girls are eased out of school to work on home chores or get married.
• Economic Survey 2018-19 opines that BBBP has been a success and proposes to extend the cause of Gender equality by coining the slogan of BADLAV (Beti Aapki Dhan Lakshmi Aur Vijay-Lakshmi) to enhance the contribution of women in the workforce and the economy.
• For ranking states based on gender disparity, Digital Gender Atlas for Advancing Girl’s Education was launched by MHRD.
• In higher education, gender disparities still prevail in enrollment.
• Efforts by the Government through programs like Beti Padhao, and Beti Bachao, the GPI has improved substantially at the primary and secondary levels of enrolment.

Quality of education

Learning outcomes are not assessed in India as numerical outcomes. The 12th Five-Year Plan noted the need for measuring and improving learning outcomes.

• Children of illiterate parents can’t supplement school studies at home and also can’t afford expensive tuition, leading to a vicious cycle of illiteracy.
• From 2014 to 2018, there was a gradual improvement in both basic literacy and numeracy for Class III students but only a quarter of them are at grade level (ability to read and do basic operations like subtraction of Class II level).
• The report also shows that 1 out of 4 children leaving Class VIII are without basic reading skills (ability to read at least a Class II level).

Government initiatives

• Central Rules under the RTE Act were amended in February 2017 to include the defined class-wise and subject-wise learning outcomes.
• Nationwide sub-program of SSA to improve comprehensive early reading, writing, and early mathematics programs for children in Classes I and II.

Teacher Training

• Teachers play the most critical role in a student’s achievement.
• The need is for better incentives for teachers, investments in teacher capacity through stronger training programs, and addressing the problems in the teaching-learning process.
• However, teachers in India, especially in government schools, are considered a cog in the way to efficient governance. There is an inadequate focus on their motivation and skill updation.
• NCERT study shows that there is no systematic incorporation of teacher feedback into designing pieces of training. Also, there is no mechanism to check whether this training is translated into classroom performance.
• These results in de-professionalizing the teaching profession and curb a teacher’s “internal responsibility” — the sense of duty to the job.
• World Development Report on Education (2018) opined that both teaching skills and motivation matter. Individually targeted continued training is important. In line with this, MHRD and the National Council for Teacher Education launched the National Teacher Platform, or Diksha in 2017 . It is a one-stop solution to address teacher competency gaps.
• However, the current training through Diksha follows a one-size-fits-all approach. Even though the platform is designed to democratize both access to and creation of content by teachers, its real benefits are in the ability to provide continuous professional development which complements existing physical training.
• This technology-enabled platform allows training to become a continuous activity rather than an annual event and also creates a feedback loop ensuring the effectiveness of the material.
• Diksha has the potential to re-engineer in-service teacher training in India. It is important to create good content and also to ensure technology consumption by teachers, the role of headmasters in promoting teachers’ professional development, etc.

As India participates in the PISA in 2021, it is to be made sure that we recognize the importance of teachers and their role in education outcomes.

Private Schools vs Public Schools: The Big Debate in Education

At least 30% of students between the 6-14 age groups are in the private sector.

• There is an increasing perception that the quality of teaching in private schools is better than that of public schools. Thus there is a clamour for increasing the number of private schools and simultaneously limiting public spending on government schools.
• However, the claim on the quality of private schools is debatable as there is a wide disparity of the same among these schools.

Research paper by Geeta Gandhi Kingdon, professor of education and international development at the Institute of Education, London, offers insights into private-public school education in India:

• The paper points out that between 2010-11 and 2015-16, the average enrolment in government schools declined from 122 to 108 students per school, while in private schools it rose from 202 to 208.
• Nevertheless, according to the District Information System for Education (DISE), 65% of all school-going children, 113 million, get their education from government schools.
• The study points out that the migration to private schools is due to the belief among parents that these schools offer better value for money in terms of quality.
• IndiaSpend, in 2016, reported that despite the Rs 1.16 lakh crore spent on SSA, the quality of learning declined between 2009 and 2014. It also points out that less than one in five elementary school teachers in India are trained. Also, the contractual teachers, who are high in number in government schools, are likely to be less motivated and accountable.
• Preference for private school tutoring is there.
• The quality of schools varies between states. In 2016, in Kerala, the proportion of children enrolled in primary government schools increased from 40.6% in 2014 to 49.9% according to ASER 2016.
• States with better-functioning government schools have more expensive private schools as there is no market for the ‘low-fee’ budget private schools. Around 80% of private schools in India are ‘low’ fee schools.
• ASER 2016 has shown small improvements in learning outcomes in government schools.
• Between 2010-11 and 2015-16, the number of private schools grew by 35% – to 0.30 million. On the other hand, the number of government schools grew only by 1%, to 1.04 million. The migration out of government schools has left many of these economically unviable.
• Government teachers in India earn four times that of China but don’t perform as well. Up to 80% of India’s public expenditure on education is spent on teachers. There is a need to link teacher salaries to their accountability.
• However, the salary of private teachers is very low compared to their government counterparts. This is due to the “bureaucratically-set high ‘minimum wage’, which is being influenced by strong unions of government school teachers.
• Another reason for the low salary of private school teachers is that the private education sector offers salaries based on market factors of demand and supply. Since 10.5% of graduates are unemployed in India, there is a high supply of teachers.
• Rather than merely increasing the budget outlay for education, the need is to revise the Education policy for better accountability and monitoring mechanisms.
• Gandhi argued that a Public-private partnership (PPP) model may be the solution, with public sector funding and private resources for education, since reforming the present system may not be politically feasible.

Rather than debating about private versus public schools, the focus should be to  enable the private sector to set up more schools under the scrutiny of regulatory authorities. There is no point in driving off the private initiative in schooling given the limited resources of the states. Private investment should be encouraged but made accountable for quality and conduct.

The above discussion showed the challenges of the Indian education system. A workforce that India wants to create in this digital age requires reforms in education at all levels. UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report 2016 opined that India is expected to achieve universal primary education in 2050. India is 50 years late in achieving its global education commitments. If the nation wants fundamental changes in the education system, it has to meet the 2030 SDG targets on education. There is an urgent requirement for greater evolution in education in India.

Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP): How to transform Education in India?

EQUIP is a  five-year vision plan on education, released by MHRD, by  the Prime Minister’s decision to create a five-year vision plan for each Ministry.

The EQUIP project is crafted by ten expert groups led by experts within and outside the government:

• Group 1: Strategies for expanding access
• Group 2: Towards global best teaching/learning process
• Group 3: Promoting Excellence
• Group 4: Governance reforms
• Group 5: Assessment, Accreditation, and Ranking Systems
• Group 6: Promotion of research and innovation
• Group 7: Employability and Entrepreneurship
• Group 8: Using Technology for Better Reach
• Group 9: Internationalisation
• Group 10: Financing Higher Education

The groups have suggested initiatives to transform the education system completely. The goals set by the groups are:

• Double GER in higher education and resolve the geographically and socially skewed access to higher education institutions.
• Upgrade the quality of education to global standards.
• Position at least 50 Indian institutions among the top 1000 global universities.
• Introduce governance reforms in higher education for well-administered campuses.
• Accreditation of all institutions as an assurance of quality.
• Promote Research and Innovation ecosystems for positioning India in the top three countries in the world in matters of knowledge creation.
• Double the employability of the students passing out of higher education.
• Harness education technology for expanding the reach and improving pedagogy.
• Promote India as a global study destination.
• Achieve a quantum increase in investment in higher education.

We can see that each of the above goals has been known to us for a long time. The problem is its implementation. The political class and all other stakeholders should come together to achieve these goals. The plethora of government initiatives on higher education is a sure sign of the importance given by the political class in the reform of the education system of India. Let’s hope that a new dawn of Indian education is around the corner which will bring back the glory of ancient times when India was the centre of knowledge production.

As the Economic Survey 2016-17 points out, lack of health, malnourishment, etc. affects the cognitive ability of children. This will, in turn, have a detrimental effect on their future educational prospects. This leads to a vicious cycle of inter-generational illiteracy, poor health, and ultimately poverty. So education and health are complementary to each other and reforms in one sector should invariably be preceded and followed by reforms in other sectors. Human development as a whole can be considered as a wholesome development and we must appreciate the interlinkages of each section of human capital formation, be it health, education, digital literacy, skills, etc.

Also read: PM-USHA

In the larger domain of human capital , education, and skill development have a big role.

Census 2011 data on literacy gives us a quick perspective on the current status of education. However, education is not just about literacy.

RTE act acts as a cornerstone for Indian education. Nevertheless, it is the various education policies, charted out since Independence, which led to the historical evolution of the education system in India.

The results of these policies can be said to be mixed. There is still a lot of room for improvement.

There are various government initiatives targeting each level of the education system in India. The higher Education System is given a greater focus these days.

The latest update in the education sector is the Kasturirangan report or draft new education policy . It captures the need of the hour for reforming education.

The modern Indian education system is crying for a revamp. The draft New Education Policy (NEP) is the right moment to take stock of its history, achievements, and misgivings to chart out a futuristic education plan for 21st-century India.

Also read:  Education in state list: Should it be restored?

Article by  Sethu  Krishnan M, curated by ClearIAS Team

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Reader Interactions

November 27, 2019 at 10:33 pm

Wow what the largest matter of education is?. Very nice thank u sir

November 28, 2019 at 12:09 pm

Nice article but it is too long we need around 400 words which explains education in india,challenges,way forward only It is very hard to remember and segrate from given imp because all points look like imp please try to make it around 400 words only

November 28, 2019 at 2:00 pm

@MKM – The aim was to cover almost everything about Education in India as a comprehensive post. The post covers: (a) History of Education in India (b) Current Status of Education in India: Data from Census 2011 (c) RTE Act (d) Various Educational Policies in the past (e) The New National Educational Policy (NEP) (f) The Problems associated with the Education System in India (g) Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP): How to transform Education in India?

Though ClearIAS prefers short and crisp articles, for important areas like Education, we felt a detailed write-up would be useful.

Thank you for your feedback. We will continue to create concise articles as well.

November 28, 2019 at 12:35 pm

Good Source thank you Team.

November 28, 2019 at 1:56 pm

November 28, 2019 at 2:41 pm

November 29, 2019 at 7:45 am

This is a very nice and comprehensive information on education.

November 29, 2019 at 2:21 pm

Such a nice article sir thank you..

December 16, 2019 at 5:31 pm

March 30, 2020 at 12:48 pm

Sir,a small corrrection regarding literacy rate ranking, Kerala (93%)tops its followed by Lakshadweep(92 %), Mizoram (91 %) , Tripura (87.7 %) and Goa (87.4 %) as 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th places repectively according to 2011 census.

June 16, 2020 at 12:20 am

Excellent Work

August 31, 2020 at 1:14 pm

Thank you vry much team.🤗 You provide excellent data ,analysis,facts,etc…evrything at one doc.

November 16, 2020 at 10:47 pm

Absolutely amazing stuff. Can’t believe.. Thanks from the bottom of my heart ❤️❤️

May 27, 2021 at 12:38 pm

Great article about Education ​very informative thanks for sharing

May 31, 2021 at 11:55 pm

Well and easy to understand…thank u for the team

September 12, 2021 at 10:37 am

Very good and such a broad information thank u 💖.. Lots of love

December 16, 2021 at 11:10 am

Need to update with current data eg how much percentage of school/ children get access of online education in pandemic Era COVID challanges others family support etc thank

January 28, 2022 at 10:32 am

Thank you so much for your birthday support

February 27, 2022 at 5:33 pm

good information

June 10, 2022 at 3:00 pm

Nice article very informative…traditional classroom study should be changed into a smart classroom online

July 14, 2022 at 8:55 pm

December 18, 2022 at 1:05 am

Absolute coverage article, Kindly keep it up for your determined spectators.

May 28, 2023 at 9:10 pm

desserstation on education/slums/miagration par hindi me pdf mil sakta hai

January 23, 2024 at 8:06 pm

The analysis provides a comprehensive overview of India’s education system, highlighting its pyramid structure and alignment with Sustainable Development Goals. Constitutional provisions like Article 21A and the RTE Act aim for universal education. However, the RTE Act faces criticism. To enhance educational outcomes, addressing these concerns and ensuring effective implementation are imperative. Schools in Pataudi Gurgaon focus on quality, inclusivity, and overcoming criticisms can lead Indian education to new heights. Thank You Samriddhi Sharma

February 7, 2024 at 7:44 pm

It’s crucial to delve into the challenges confronting the Indian education sector and understand the constitutional framework and policies guiding it. Exploring these aspects sheds light on the complexities and opportunities within the system. However, it’s equally important to consider how these discussions translate into action at the grassroots level, especially in local communities like Rajajinagar, Bangalore. How are schools in rajajinagar bangaloreaddressing these systemic issues and implementing reforms to ensure quality education for all students? This intersection of policy discourse and on-the-ground realities is where meaningful change happens.

March 8, 2024 at 6:22 am

Is there any data on how many states provide free education to girls till grade X and how many provide it till grade XII?

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