Education is a term often used to refer to formal education (see below). The word's broader meaning covers a range of experiences, from formal learning to the building of understanding and knowledge through day to day experiences. Ultimately, it could be and has been said that all that we experience serves as a form of education. [citation needed]

It is a widely held belief that education is lifelong. Individuals receive informal education from a variety of sources. Family members, peers, books and mass media have a strong influence on the informal education of the individual.

Education also refers to a discipline, a body of theoretical and applied research relating to understanding and improving the processes of teaching and learning. It draws on other disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, computer science, linguistics, neuroscience, sociology and anthropology.

Philosophy of education

Main article: Philosophy of education

The philosophy of education is the study of the purpose, nature and ideal content of education. Related topics include knowledge itself, the nature of the knowing mind and the human subject, problems of authority, and the relationship between education and society. At least since Rousseau's time, the philosophy of education has been linked to theories of developmental psychology and human development.

Fundamental purposes that have been proposed for education include:

1. The enterprise of civil society depends on educating young people to become responsible, thoughtful and enterprising citizens. This is an intricate, challenging task requiring deep understanding of ethical principles, moral values, political theory, aesthetics, and economics, not to mention an understanding of who children are, in themselves and in society.
2. Progress in every practical field depends on having capacities that schooling can educate. Education is thus a means to foster the individual's, society's, and even humanity's future development and prosperity. Emphasis is often put on economic success in this regard.
3. One's individual development and the capacity to fulfill one's own purposes can depend on an adequate preparation in childhood. Education can thus attempt to give a firm foundation for the achievement of personal fulfillment. The better the foundation that is built, the more successful the child will be. Simple basics in education can carry a child far.

The nature, origin and scope of knowledge

Main article: Epistemology

See also: Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom, Self-realization, and Ability

A central tenet of education typically includes “the imparting of knowledge.” At a very basic level, this purpose ultimately deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. The branch of philosophy that addresses these and related issues is known as epistemology. This area of study often focuses on analyzing the nature and variety of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth and belief.

While the term, knowledge, is often used to convey this general purpose of education, it can also be viewed as part of a continuum of knowing that ranges from very specific data to the highest levels. Seen in this light, the continuum may be thought to consist of a general hierarchy of overlapping levels of knowing. Students must be able to connect new information to a piece of old information to be better able to learn, understand, and retain information. This continuum may include notions such as data, information, knowledge, wisdom, and realization.

Challenges

The goal of education is fourfold: the social purpose, intellectual purpose, economic purpose, and political/civic purpose. Current education issues include which teaching method(s) are most effective, how to determine what knowledge should be taught, which knowledge is most relevant, and how well the pupil will retain incoming knowledge. Educators such as George Counts and Paulo Freire identified education as an inherently political process with inherently political outcomes. The challenge of identifying whose ideas are transferred and what goals they serve has always stood in the face of formal and informal education.

Education and Economic Growth

If we look at a sorted list of nations with the highest level of secondary schooling we would notice these to be the richest countries in the world, based on GDP per capita. High rates of education are essential for countries to achieve high levels of economic growth. In theory poor countries should grow faster than rich countries because they can adopt cutting edge technologies already tried and tested by rich countries. But economists argue that if the gap in education between a rich and a poor nation is too large, as is the case between the poorest and the richest nations in the world, the transfer of these technologies that drive economic growth becomes difficult, thus the economies of the world's poorest nations stagnate.

What are ICTs and what types of ICTs are commonly used in education?

Main Article: ICT in Education

ICTs stand for information and communication technologies and are defined, for the purposes of this primer, as a “diverse set of technological tools and resources used to communicate, and to create, disseminate, store, and manage information.”[1] These technologies include computers, the Internet, broadcasting technologies (radio and television), and telephony.

In recent years there has been a groundswell of interest in how computers and the Internet can best be harnessed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of education at all levels and in both formal and non-formal settings. But ICTs are more than just these technologies; older technologies such as the telephone, radio and television, although now given less attention, have a longer and richer history as instructional tools.[2] For instance, radio and television have for over forty years been used for open and distance learning, although print remains the cheapest,most accessible and therefore most dominant delivery mechanism in both developed and developing countries.[3] The use of computers and the Internet is still in its infancy in developing countries, if these are used at all, due to limited infrastructure and the attendant high costs of access.

Moreover, different technologies are typically used in combination rather than as the sole delivery mechanism. For instance, the Kothmale Community Radio Internet uses both radio broadcasts and computer and Internet technologies to facilitate the sharing of information and provide educational opportunities in a rural community in Sri Lanka.[4] The Open University of the United Kingdom (UKOU), established in 1969 as the first educational institution in the world wholly dedicated to open and distance learning, still relies heavily on print-based materials supplemented by radio, television and, in recent years, online programming.[5] Similarly, the Indira Gandhi National Open University in India combines the use of print, recorded audio and video, broadcast radio and television, and audioconferencing technologies.[6]