FREE EDUCATION

Education should be Free at all Levels for Everyone

Education should be Free at all Levels for Everyone

Introduction

Education and learning is an important part of an individual's life. These factors play their immensely valuable role in the development of an individual and they also play their part in shaping the life of an individual. Education and opportunities to get education is the basic right of an individual. There are certain factors that give rise to the concept of inequality in the accessibility to educational opportunities. Quality education is becoming an issue in today's world. We should be able to make sure that the people who are living around us are performing their job in the best possible manner. There are people who cannot afford quality education, but those who have money are not able to find proper places for sending their children to the best place. Education is a right. It is not charity, it is not a service. It is a right that every human being should have and is the responsibility of Government to provide it free so gradually, because it takes a lot of resources to deliver quality educational programs at different levels. That primary education should be free for all is a need, a minimum requirement, and also secondary education progressively.

Education Inequality

While UK education policy may be premised on the idea that social exclusion can be reduced by bringing everyone into active economic participation, it is unlikely to seriously address inequality. Academic achievement is persistently low in some regions, suggesting that in practice schooling continues to reinforce inequality (Harris, 2009, pp. 31). Indeed, through a variety of strategies, education systems have long served to reproduce the class structure of Western society. Moreover, in countries like the UK and USA where an economic model of childcare dominates (Rothbard, 1999, pp. 68), whereby parents have to pay market rates for commoditized services which vary considerably in terms of quality, it could be argued that social inequalities will be reproduced as the opportunity to enhance 'cultural capital' also varies.

Education in Western societies is not simply about producing a skilled labour force. It is increasingly geared at moulding particular kinds of future economic actors, 'neoliberal subjects,' fully autonomous individuals (albeit autonomous largely in relation to the economy rather than other aspects of life), exercising rational choice in production and consumption and operating as engines of economic growth (Bernstein, 1971, pp. 87). If education is conceived by national governments as being about achieving competitive advantage in a global marketplace, initiatives such as the promotion of multiculturalism in education are no longer geared towards the production of tolerant and democratic national citizens but rather towards workers with the cultural capital to compete internationally.

The performance of the education system also has a significant influence on levels of educational inequality. Existing resources, supporting families, the criteria for admission of pupils in schools, the number of students per classroom, training and motivation of teachers, facilities for students to continue their studies, the ...