Who demands education and who supplies it? In this post, I refer to "education" as formal education, that is the learning that takes place in school classrooms.
There is a consistent tendency among people and institutions today to assume that education is demanded by students and their parents or guardians and supplied by teachers and schools. So, when anything happens to go well in education - a certain year showing exceptionally good results, or a surge in engineering professionals - schools are rewarded. Similarly, when anything devastating happens in education - a year of terrible results, or an increase in exam-time suicides - schools are blamed.
But this assumption begs a question: Where is the students' and parents' or guardians' demand for education rooted? Is it an esoteric demand that comes from within the household at any given inspirational moment? Or is it an exoteric demand that comes from outside the household, nudging the household itself to want it?
My belief is that the demand is exoteric. That society has created a demand among people for education that is sufficient to make every new household want it automatically.
Then, education is really demanded by society.
If indeed education is demanded by society, then can the commonly-understood suppliers meet this demand? That is, is it teachers and schools that meet the entire society's demand for education? Or is it the students themselves who, after attaining a certain qualification, move from the classroom into the world to manifest their learning in something productive for society?
My belief is that the students, with the help of their parents and guardians, meet society's demand for education.
Then, education is really supplied by those who learn.
If we consider this perspective on the economy around education, then perhaps what we expect of it will change. Perhaps we ought to scrutinize society's demand for education and the student's supply of knowledge onto society when critiquing or complimenting education.
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