Education is a key factor for national development and social transformation. The Chinese since time immemorial attach great significance to education as a process to build the right character to lead a life befitting a human being. When a discussion on national development took place, the Chinese would invariably refer to one factor which was imperative, rern chai, or human resource or human capacity. Indeed, it is human beings who build society or destroy society depending on the governance and the political leadership of a particular nation.
Education is thus a process of human development which in turn will impact, positively or negatively, upon society. Education, ideally speaking, would or should proceed along with eight objectives. First, when a child was born, he or she was a biological being who would need to be nurtured with nutritious food so that the body most notably the brain could develop healthily. People with a healthy body are the first element to be developed in order to form a bodily healthy society.
Second, a person cannot survive if he or she is not socialized to be able to live as a social animal. The first thing, after being fed with food, is to be taught to speak the mother tongue. The knowledge of human interactions which incorporates knowledge of culture, social relations and how to behave in a certain setup will have to be inculcated. Hence, from biological being a person has to be taught to become a social being.
Third, a person will have to survive by earning a living. In the old days, he or she has to know how to hunt or to gather food. Today, there is what is known as professional training and hence he or she has to acquirer knowledge in either a formal education or informal education to become a professional being as a trader, a doctor, an engineer, a teacher, etc. This is to be able to carry on with livelihood.
Fourth, a person may be good as a professional but he or she has to work with others in an organization. He or she may be able work along as a lone wolf in the field of arts as a painter, for example. But for most of the occupation, one has to be able to work with others in an organization or to become an organizational being.
Fifth, man does not live by bread alone as the saying goes. A person has to take in some culture. He or she has to have aesthetic value. Ideally, a person, apart from having the said attributes, should be a cultured being.
Sixth, in a society, no one can escape politics. Living in an organized society as a nation, despite the fact that a person may not or may not want to get involved in politics, will inevitably be impacted by politics. Tax increase, for instance, will be felt by the tax payers. Thus, political education is thus important and people need to have political knowledge and be aware of what is politically going on.
Seventh, human beings consist of three parts, the body, the mind and the soul. A person who has a healthy body, a keen mind should also possess a good soul. A good soul is a moralistic soul having loving compassion, kindness and ever ready to help others. He or she should thus ideally be a spiritual being.
Last, human beings are created in the image of God. He or she should have a free spirit. Socially apart from the obligatory attributes of being a professional being or an organizational being which require a certain set of behavior, a person should also have selfhood and personhood with individualism. Men are not automatons and should not speak and behave as if they are infantile robotic biological beings as are the cases in some societies. They have to have self-esteem, principle and field independence.
All the eight items above are the attributes of human beings, many of which came from the socialization and the educational process. An ideal educational system should be one that educate and train members of society to be able to survive, being social beings, professional beings and the like but they should also allow them to be able to retain their humanness such as selfhood which is part of individual being. An educational system which turned people into robots and to just carry out orders or behave in a tight framework of society is no education but indoctrination.
Men are born free but as it is often quoted from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who said, in effect, that "Men are born free, but everywhere they are in chains. Living in a society, there are acts which are required by culture, by etiquette, by decorum, etc. These are prescribed and expected by society. Some of these elements are necessary but some others may be viewed with distaste by some people but they have to conform against their will. That is where figuratively they are in chains. Education, based on a wrong concept dictated by a wrong political system and governance may become the most weighty chains which confine a person's freedom and his or her free spirit. If nothing is done and the problem becomes severe, the individuals may wide up becoming automatons without a soul. What is the prospect as dreadful as a human being having been turned into walking robot without freedom of thoughts. In the final analysis a person devoid of human dignity is, spiritually, a dead person!