2. Description of Formal Education

Let us examine what the term informal education means and how it is different from the informal and the non-formal in the context of modern views on education. Society has developed certain institutions and systems for educating the younger generation in subjects like craft and arts, science and technology etc. By going through this education which has a specific form and content approved by the society, it is expected that the students could acquire certain satisfactory standards in the knowledge of particular subjects. Society can make use of the educated youth by engaging in various professions in its service. They are given certificates and awards after the examination and tests conducted by the

110 academic bodies instituted or supported by the governments. This type of education is given to the students for a fixed span of time by qualified teachers. Unlike the formal education the informal education is a lifelong process. It is a fact that one acquires knowledge as he lives on and gives special attention to the topics of his interest. What one cannot get by the formal education imparted by the institutions of education becomes available from the informal methods of education. According to Sir Godfry Thompson 'The whole of the environment is the instrument of man's education in the widest sense. But in that environment certain actors are distinguishable as being more particularly concerned; the home, the church, the press, the vocation, public life, 2 amusement and hobbies'. All these means are the source of education. These sources are classified into three: formal, non-formal and informal agencies. The formal comprehends education as it is provided in educational institutions according to a particular pattern. In the school, the educator teaches the educants according to a specific program ensuring at a particular goal. He teaches a pre-determined syllabus, according to a time-table with fixed curriculum and locations. In this formal kind of education the time and place of teaching are fixed and the educant has to

111 arrive at that place and at that specific time to receive education. The length of such education is also fixed in terms of years. In formal education everything is definite and specific about the objectives, learning experience, desired behavioral changes together with measuring and evaluation techniques, time limit, prescribed levels to effective planning, organizations, leveling and controlling. John Deway has remarked, 'Formal education easily becomes remote and dead-abstract 3 and bookish' and without formal education it is not possible to transmit all the resources and achievements of a complex society. It also opens a way to a kind of experience which would not be accessible to the young, if they were left to pick up their training informal association with others, since books and the symbols of knowledge are mastered'. In such institutions discipline and administration is created by the application of set rules. At least specific education cannot be provided in the absence of these institutions but it must be realized that education provided through these agencies is rather lifeless and theoretical or bookish. It sometimes takes the educant far away from the realities of life. School is the best example of formal agency in addition to school libraries, lecture-theaters, recreation centers, museums, organiztions etc are also enumerated among the formal agencies of education.

112 By 'formal education' is meant the deliberated and systematic transmission of knowledge skills and attitudes (with the stress on knowledge) within an explicit defined and structured format for space, time and material with set qualifications for teachers and learners, such as is typified in the technology of schooling.4