Education as an agent, catalyst

Unit 4 E Education as a change agent/catalyst

Education as co-operative force in social change or as a tool or as a catalyst or as an agent for social change.

Educatioon plays very important roles to bring social change in society /nation. It plays different kinds of roles such as an co-operative force in social change, as an agent of social change in society and as a tool of social change. Let’s discuss the functions of education in the sphere of social change which are as follows

1] Assistance in adopting social change

We all familiar with the process of teaching and learning ie.. Education which makes aware an educand about occurring social changes. It helps an educand to know which are the social changes are fruitful for him and which are detrimental that means education brings awreness in society. It educates people all about everything and prepares everybody as social beings and this helps them to adopt social changes in their society.

It is the aim of education to make all good changes easily accessible to every person. In India, a large majority pf people found it difficult to reconcile themselves to the changes that occurred in the institutions of family and marriage, but the educated majority soon realized the advantages of there changes. Later on as education spread to other sections of society, the importance and value of these changes come to be recognized more universally. Hence it is now generally accepted that before bringing about any social change in society, it is necessary to create a receptive temper of mind among the people. Thus education plays a supportive role to adopt social changes.
2] Overcoming resistance to change

Due to orthodox nature, blind faith and prejudices people resists changes in society or community. eg. Many societies have have been living the same way and they have the same dowry system in marriage institution, different kinds of rigid sanskaras which resist them to live freely and stop their development or to change their culture because they believe in what their fore father said. Education abolishes such orthodoxy, rigidness in the society. Through the medium of Education, the importance of social change is convincingly explained to the people so that they overcome such résistance to change and thus they remove orthodoxy, rigidness lied in the society.


3] Analysis of change
Progress occurs only when the change leads the society to more desirable social values/ and for this analysis and criticism of social change is essential. Only the educated individual can make valid criticism and offer constructive suggestions, because it is education which invest the individual with the capacity to use his intelligence to distinguish between right and wrong and to establish certain ideals .Education determines the values which act as a criterion for the analysis of social change and desirable social changes encourage .In every society, this is achieved only through the effects

4] Emergence of new change
As we know education educates an individual to face the challenges in his life as well as he is acquainted with the social change occurred in the society. So he will be able to change traditional way of life style ,blind faith ,prejudices among different kinds of people. So an educand brings new changes in the society. eg. the status of women in Indian society The abolition of many social evils sucgh as child marriage, unequal rights of women etc….Only educated people can change the public opinion. Hence it is the educated classs in every society which initiates, guides and controls movements for social reforms emerges new changes in the society.

5] Transmission of culture
Through its function of transmission of national culture from generation to generation as a continuous process, education tends stability and continuity to the society. Not only this, education prepares society to as adopt needed and desirable social reforms. In this sense education is the creator generator and director of all social changes. In short education is a conservative consolidating and stabilizing force and in addition it is a creative force as well.


6] Advances in the sphere of knowledge
New researches and inventions all depend upon education, because only the educated individual can search for new things in every sphere. Only such people can help in the progress of non –material culture. Fresh discoveries in the sphere of the knowledge provide the right basis for criticism of society. Then the need for change becomes apparent .Thus education contributes to social change by bringing changes in the knowledge.

7] Leadership in social change
Education creates a consciousness of social change as well as it teaches people all to distinguish between the good and the bad and thus education develops all the qualities of a leader in everybody. Education makes an individual an initiative to cop up with changes occur in society and develops himself from all the corners/angles so that he brings social change.
These are the functions of education in the sphere of social change through which we can decide the nature of education defective education leads to defective social changes so education is a tool of social changes. It is an agent of social changes it brings social changes so it is a catalyst tool, who create future generation of critics of change and leader of reform.