Various forms of Education | Wandofknowledge.com

Various forms of Education | Wandofknowledge.com

Education has the following forms:

1. General Education- General Education has the minimum education required by an individual to satisfy all his various needs. It aims at developing the general qualities of the child, so its personality can develop and it can become capable of adjusting to its environment. It also enables him to earn him livelihood and to behave properly, in accordance with his age.
2. Specific Education- Specific Education is spread over a long period of time and is often centered in specialized institutions such as medical college, engineering colleges, technical institutes, etc. In each case, the aim is to make individual proficient in a particular skill, be it curing sick people, designing or repairing machines, growing crops, or anything else. The modern age is period of specialization. As long as an individual cannot perform some place for himself in the society. It is for this reason that now days individuals are given vocational guidance in order to help them to take up professional for which their abilities are best suited.
3. Direct Education- Direct education is the equivalent of formal education and specific education. In this form of education, the educator and the educant are in direct contact when education on a specific subject is disseminated. Its chief advantage lies in the material learnt by the educant more by the example of the educator’s personality and character than by the formal material he seeks to impart. Direct education becomes difficult when the number of students becomes very large, or education itself becomes very mechanical and purely vocational.
4. Indirect Education- Many universities have undertaken to conduct correspondence courses, which are a fine example of indirect education. In this form of education the subject of a lecture is printed and posted to the student. The student is required to answer certain questions sent along with the lecture. These answers are sent by him to the university where they are evaluated and returned to the student with the appropriate guidance. As this kind of indirect education offers a better and more practical adjustment to the circumstances of a very large number of individuals, it is becoming increasingly popular, particularly in the west. All the books that are written by the greatest thinkers and read by a vast audience are an excellent example of this indirect education.
5. Formal Education- The formal education comprehends education as it is provided in educational institutions according to a particular pattern. In the school, the educator educates the educants according to a specific programmes aiming at particular goal. He follows a pre-determined syllabus. In this formal kind of education, the time and place of teaching are fixed, and the educant has to arrive at that place and at that specific time to receive education. The length of such education is also fixed in terms of years. General and specific education is included under the formal classification because both are often provided in schools. The advantages of the formal kind of education lie in that it can be specifically and consistently provided to a large number of children simultaneously. The objectives of this education are also determined beforehand.
6. Informal Education- Education of this kind has no specific time or place at which it is provided. Even the educator is not fixed. All fixed syllabi, rules, formalities are absent from it. Education of this kind is the education one receives while playing in field, talking to family members in the house, roaming around somewhere in fact, everywhere. This kind of education never comes to an end, and it teaches the individual more than he can ever learn through his formal education. A child learns many things when he comes in contact with new people. He discovers many new worlds when he goes to new places. This education which he receives cannot be evaluated as formal education can.
7. Conscious Education- The conscious kind of education is the education which is provided with a full knowledge of the objectives to be achieved through it. College education is of this kind. It is intended to fulfil certain pre-determined objectives. Conscious education is arranged for the child by his parents and by the state, but the child deliberately receives conscious education.
8. Unconscious Education-An individual does not learn all the things he actually knows consciously. Many of the important facts that a child learns are absorbed unconsciously from his natural and social environment which surrounds him. This kind of education is informal and since it supplements the education received consciously, neither can be said to be more or less important than the other.
9. Individual Education- Many of the modern educational psychologists have stressed the importance of individual differences between the people and suggested that the educator should pay individual attention to each educant, remove his difficulties and, if necessary, modify the syllabi and the teaching programme to suit the specific abilities and traits of the educant. Scientifically considered, this advice is very good, and if arrangements can be made to provide individual education at this level, nothing could be better. Kindergarten, Montessori and project methods, all of which are modern methods of child education, attempt to provide the highest degree of individual attention possible.
10. Collective Education- Collective education is provided to a group of individuals collected at one place. Formal education is often also collective education. Keeping in mind the obvious advantages of individual education, efforts are made to restrict the size of the group of educants. The very meaning of education would be lost if the educator lost all contact with the educants, if they are in too large a number. This form of education is comparatively economical of time and money because one single educator can teach a large number of educants. In view of the present size of the population, and the possibilities of its growing further, collective education is the only practicable answer to the need for universal education.

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