Equality of Educational OpportunityThe equalization of educational opportunities is essentially linked with the equality notions in the social system. The social system which intends to provide equal opportunities for the advancement of all has to make provisions for equal educational opportunities also. In modern industrial society education has become the main agency for socializing new born into law abiding citizens and productive members of the society. Formal education has become almost indispensable because to participate in economic production one needs to learn specialized skills which cannot be acquired through family or any other agency. Due to the indispensability of formal education in advanced industrial societies education is provided by the state as a matter of right for all its citizens. Formal institutions – schools, colleges and universities are organized for this purpose.
In most societies today legislations exist guaranteeing equality of the right of education. In fact to realize this ideal of equality of educational opportunities special efforts are made by the welfare states in industrial societies to provide compulsory education to the socially deprived. In developing countries like India state has assumed the responsibility to provide universal free education at the school level. Special policy measures have been developed to spread modern scientific secular education to rural areas and policy of protective discriminating has been adopted to encourage the traditionally deprived section like SC and ST to take to modern education. However in spite of the creation of a legal framework in most societies to ensure quality of educational opportunity such an ideal continues to be elusive in reality even in the industrially advanced societies.
Raymond Bourdon has investigated the problem of equality of educational opportunities. Bourdon has tried to analyze the relationship between social structure and educational attainment. Bourdon maintain that even if there were no sub cultural difference between classes the very fact that people start at different positions in the class system will produce inequality of educational opportunity. For example the costs involved and the benefits to be gained for a working class boy and an upper middle class boy in choosing the same educational course are very different simply because their starting positions in the class-system are different.
Bourdon also relates the costs and benefits of course selection to family and peer group solidarity. His work has important implications for practical solutions to the problem of inequality of education opportunity. Even if positive discrimination worked and schools were able to compensate for the primary effects of stratification considerable inequality of educational opportunity would remain.
Bourdon argues that there are two ways of removing the secondary effects of stratification. The first involves the educational system. If it provides a single compulsory curriculum for all students the element of choice in the selection of course and duration of stay in the system would be removed. The individual would no longer be influenced by his courses and remain in full time education for the same period of time. He argues that more the branching points there are in the educational system point at which the student can leave or choose between alternative courses the more likely working class students are to leave or choose lower level courses. The gradual raising of the school leaving age in all advanced industrial societies has reduced inequality of educational opportunity but the present trend indicate that his reduction will at best proceed at a much slower rate. Bourdon’s second solution to the problem of inequality of educational opportunity is the abolition of social stratification. He sees moves in the direction of economic equality as the most effective way of reducing inequality or educational opportunity. As a result he argues that the key to equality of opportunity lies outside rather than inside the schools. Bourdon concludes: for inequality or educational opportunity to be eliminated either a society must be unstratified or its school system must be completely undifferentiated.
Problems concerning equality of opportunities in education
Education helps in establishing equality and ensuring social justice but the system of education itself can add to the existing inequalities or at least perpetuate the same. Inequalities of educational opportunities arise due to
- Poverty as the poor cannot afford to meet the expenses of education.
- Children studying in the rural schools have to compete with the children in urban areas where there are well-equipped schools.
- In the places where no primary, secondary or collegiate educational institutions exist children do not get the same opportunity as those who have all these in their neighborhood.
- Wide inequalities also arise from differences in home environments. A child from a rural household or slum does not have the same opportunity as a child from an upper class home with educated parents.
- There is wide sex disparity in India. Here girl’s education is not given the same encouragement as boys.
- Education of backward classes including SC and ST and economically backward sections is not at par with that of other communities or classes.
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