Education is generally beneficial given it provides learners with necessary skills for personal development and for societal development. However, an in-depth assessment of education exhibits its shortcomings. Schooling functions and the contrast between formal in industrial societies against others provides the platform to analyze the educational system through the structural-functional and social conflict perspectives.
From a structural-functional perspective, schooling is an ideal system due to the positive functions; however, the contrast detailed in industrial societies against others magnifies the shortcomings of the educational system through the lens of social conflict. Schooling regards formal instruction under specially trained teachers with functions such as socialization, cultural innovation, social integration, social placement, and achieving latent functions. For the first and second element, the schooling system provides space for teachers to pass specialized knowledge and transmit cultural values accompanied by norms. For the third component, schooling equally molds a diverse population into a united one facilitated by shared values. For the fourth and last element, schooling rewards talent and achieves functions like childcare provision and facilitating potential to establish networks. The ideal situation magnifies the social-functional theory that suggests society is a complex system whose parts work together for stability. Schooling functions entail the mentioned framework with different parties working together to achieve stability in the long term.
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Despite the ideal impacts offered by schooling, formal education is more common in industrial societies than in others. Industrial societies have incentives for formal education given the availability of resources for necessary developments in the education sector, from infrastructure to skilled labor. Such societies equally have most of the young ones having vast education opportunities due to households' capability to fend for learning. The case is the opposite for other societies or low-income regions with low-income families lacking funds to acquire learning opportunities, with most failing to proceed to higher levels like colleges. The comparison shows the correlation between schooling and economic development. The contrast equally magnifies ideals of the social conflict theory that suggests a struggle between classes, thereby facilitating inequality. The educational system can propagate societal gaps through inequality.
Educational system structure stands to benefit learners by providing necessary skills as entailed in the benefits of schooling such as socialization, cultural innovation, social integration, social placement, and achieving latent functions. However, the difference between formal education in industrial societies against the others, with the former detailing ideal structures compared to the latter, shows the educational system's gaps.
