Do you know that shools were designed to bring progressive changes in society?Education system is designed to select good and supress the bad behaviours as it teaches people how to meet changing situations.These changes may be in politics,economy or society in general.Education spearhead changes in the society.It prepares people for change .This is made possible by what it teaches,by how it teaches and by the kinds of values and attitudes it develops in the learners.
Schools as social institutions among others, they are established to serve the interests of those established it. We know that in recent past ,the schools served the interests of the dominant groups.We also know that the majority were given an inferior education in the sense that it could make them an educated servants ,in any sphere of life whether social ,political or economic.This type of education encouraged competition and individualism.It was a means by which one avoided manual gullible labour.It was a passport to the cherished white collar job.In other words ,it was a means by which one rose towards more valued positions and rewarded in society. This way of education had an important social mobility function which was and still well known to parents all over the world.This may very well to be the major motivating force for educating children.
The values and attitudes that prevailed in the past are difficult to be entertained in this contemporary world.When we regard education as an instrument of change in this context we mean that the school should help children to accept and develop values that are appropriate to our kind of future.This means that our children must accept pragmatic values of eduction.The school system can do several things to help children to adopt education for change values:
•It can stress cooperation and community advancement of all its members, instead of individual advancement in the organisation of its various activities.
•It must be life oriented and empower the youth to serve their communities and also be responsible for all their living in their society and world at large.
•It should inculcate social values as well as a positive attitude towards working for the betterment of their lives.
•It must also facilitate the development of a spirit of teamwork,neighbourhood and quality among all our peoples.
The education given in schools must help to destroy intellectual pride,to create a society in which the priviledged educated people do not look down upon the less educated and those with no special abilities.
This should be done ,because arrogance has no place in a world of equal citizens.Education should help to produce divergent thinkers,who can make judgements that can help to discover solutions of the community problems in the peculiar situations.It must also help to produce people who have special skills which contribute to society's developments and general good of the world.
It is now well known that schools contribute a lot towards the most desired change of attitudes and values.It can do this if the education offered is made much more focused to the concerns of local community in content and approach.For example ,children throughout the primary or elementary education course should learn about their local history and basic skills for their life.They need to know and appreciate the different stages through which their community passed to be where and what it is today. They must also learn the history of other communities ,so that they can be able to have a selection of good norms and values suitable for their future life.In defferent community histories there are a lot of values which help our children to learn for them to do the best.
