Social Impact on Education: Trends and Teacher Training
The Current and Future of Education
The social dimension appears in both the nature of the educational process and the action of others on a subject, as in the content, habits, and values passed on. Educational action is always the result of the historical moment in which it occurs, the place where it is realized, the prevailing culture, and the socio-political forces at play. The conformation of each subject is done from their environment. As has been said many times, man is not born, man is made.
Key Factors Influencing Education
- Urban Population Growth: Urban population growth has undoubtedly created problems of overcrowding, with consequent shortages of all types of infrastructure, including education. A specific effect has been the emergence of marginalized populations, with subsequent cases of inadequate housing, poor sanitation, crime, etc.
- Technological Development: The influence of technological development is well known in all aspects of human life. Currently, there are a vast number of machines with a high degree of automation. Production processes are simplified, and machines replace men in many jobs, to the extent that jobs and professions become conditioned to the same technological evolution. Technology education is an important objective in the school system.
- Constant Evolution of Knowledge: All fields of knowledge undergo constant evolution, so specialization and retraining are necessary to avoid becoming outdated. The evolution of science affects education in two main ways.
- Universal and Immediate Information: Information is universal and immediate through the mass media – mass media. Newspapers, radio, television, telephone, telex, fax, computers, etc.
- Globalization: The universality of communication, the speed of transport, and the interaction of national policies are factors that make the world smaller, creating a sense of belonging to a single human community, of having committed the very future of others.
Preparation of Teachers
Teachers are the backbone of the education system, so their preparation is crucial to the overall quality of the same. However, the teaching profession remains undervalued socially and economically, thus making it unattractive to the most qualified university students. Education today requires highly qualified teachers and adequate training. Teachers in service are subjected to the demands of lifelong learning to update their knowledge and skills. Lifelong learning, which is a necessity for every professional in the modern world, is even more important for teachers who must prepare students not only for today but for tomorrow.
High Cost of Education
Investments in education have grown substantially in recent decades, in both absolute and relative terms.
Slowness of Pedagogical Changes
The nature of the educational process, to deliver and preserve the cultural heritage of the community, makes it particularly conservative and tending to routine. These circumstances are aggravated by the difficulty of verifying the results in the long term.
Environmental Conditions on Education
The school cannot compensate for shortfalls caused by mental and biological abnormalities, and it has serious difficulties caused by a socio-culturally deprived environment. These constraints must necessarily be considered when asking for realistic results from the school system, but neither should they be an obstacle for people to seek appropriate compensation methodologies, and for the school to be a potential enhancer element rather than a factor causing deficits.