Last Updated on October 3, 2022
Differences and relationship between schooling and education: While most people consider these two terms to be the same, there are many differences between education and schooling. School is what people often confuse with education, but there are very much different. Education includes formal and informal ways of acquiring knowledge, while schooling represents the initial and secondary stages of the formal education system that takes place in school. School is simply going to school, attending classes and waiting to write and pass the exam.
Table of Contents
What is Education?
The terms education covers not only formal but also informal methods of gaining knowledge. It includes formal means of education that start with schools and continue to universities, post-graduate institutes which are high in the hierarchy.
Formal aspect of education is always systematic, pre-scheduled, and well administered by authorities. In addition, each stage of formal education leads to higher levels of education.
As well, more importantly, all other informal means of knowledge like learning from peers, in work situations, from sources like books, online sources, and free lecture sessions that take place outside educational institutions are also part of education.
When this informal aspect of education is concerned as a whole, it is not systematic, pre-scheduled, or properly administered. Most of the time the learning content is not pre-scheduled, it is either random or depends on the interest of the learner.
Also, there is no specific stage that leads from one to another in this case, for example, the concept of lifelong education. It is noteworthy that the term education stands for both these formal, institutionalized, and informal, personalized ways of learning.
What is Schooling?
School is the initial stage of formal student education in most countries. It is common for youngsters who are below the age of schooling to attend pre-schools for basic educational skills.
The historical evidence of education institutions similar to schools in the present day runs back to the days of ancient Greek, Rome, and Indian civilizations. In all these ancient contexts attendances to formal education institutions were considered a privilege and depended on social classes.
In the modern-day, school education is considered as one of the basic rights of citizens. As well, many countries have government schools and their fee is rather affordable to the general public.
Normally, children of age 6-8 are enrolled in schools and are promoted to higher grades or classes depending on their performance. In all schools, be it public or privatized, there are specific curricula intended for each age groups or grades.
When the administration of schools is concerned principal or a head-teacher /master is in charge of the management and under his supervision, there are heads of sections, units, and teachers in charge of classes. The students in school are educated in classroom settings with teachers acting as resource persons.
Differences Between Schooling And Education
1. Webster’s defines education as ‘knowledge and development resulting from an instructive process’, but Webster’s dictionary defines schooling as ‘the process of being taught, such as in a school’.
2. Education improved as the communities developed, but no one knows when schooling actually began.
3. Formal means of education like schooling vary from that of informal because of the pre-scheduled content, administration and levels that lead to one other.
4. When education is concerned as a whole, it includes both these formal and informal means of acquiring knowledge. 5. Education is a wider concept that includes both formal and informal means of gaining knowledge, whereas schooling is the first stage of formal education in most countries.