Should the education system work to instill national values into students?
The primary goal of the educational system is to provide students with the opportunity to acquire knowledge and develop skills that will help them with their path in life. The instilling of national values, which will be defined as persuading students to follow a set of beliefs and principles founded in the nation’s ethos, holds no place in an educational system that wishes to shape unbiased-minded people. Thus, this essay will argue that the educational system should not work to instill national values into students on the bases of maintaining impartiality and promoting free thinking.
To begin with, the educational system should not work to instill national values into students so as to form students that make decisions based not out of bias or prejudice, but rather on a set of objective criteria. The imposition of a nation’s values onto students stifles a student’s ability to be open-minded and fair, especially when interacting with those from nations with a different set of values. In the face of vacillating policies and governments, it is clear that the educational system must ascertain itself as a pillar of neutrality. Otherwise, the educational system might devolve into solely being a political institution that promotes the subjective views of the current political parties. In a democracy, freedom of thought is an imperative human right that must be followed. Although bias can never be fully ruled out, the educational system should teach students values not limited to one singular nation, so that they can make an informed decision for themselves as to what belief or ethical system they wish to follow. Only this way can educational systems ensure that they are following their main goal, that is the provision of resources in acquiring knowledge and developing skills to think critically, in an impartial manner.
Furthermore, it is important to consider who decides what the national values of a nation are. Whereas a nation is a group of people sharing many commonalities, such as a language, history, or culture, a state is characterized by formal institutions of government. States, despite providing regulations and outlining educational policies, are in constant ideological and political flux. On the other hand, nationhood and its values endure even after the dissolvement of state systems. Consequently, it would not bode well for the ever-changing governments to impose their ideological values by presenting them as steadfast national values. Their intrusion into the educational system therefore goes against government impartiality in education.
On the other hand, critics of these arguments point to the fact that instilling national values into students can help them become better people as they believe that their nation’s values are correct and morally righteous. This however, is false. A nation’s values are always subject to the times they are living in and the relative position a nation is in with reference to the outside world. To base the education system on values that are constantly in flux and evolving would be akin to placing the future in the hands of the past. Our present lives may have been heavily shaped by past historical beliefs, but that does not mean we should become dependent on and limited to such ideas. Similarly, shaping a generation of students based on shifting norms would place the nation at risk of never advancing while simultaneously rendering the educational system a political pawn.
To conclude, the educational system most definitely should not work to instill national values into students due to their ever-changing nature and the necessity for impartiality. The main focus of any educational system is to advance its students by way of teaching knowledge and skills, not promoting a set of subjective values. Spending educational resources on an objective that endangers the legitimacy of democracy by making entire generations conform to current national values would reduce the educational system’s ability to focus on its primary goal.
