“Policy in Education: The Formation of Educational Policy in independent Cyprus (1960-2005)”
Menelaos Givalos
Page 11-34
Abstract
In the current paper we examine the meaning of Education as it is constructed in the contemporary frame of the post-modernistic conception. We analyze the new criteria that turn the traditional values of the enlighten pattern of Education into a new educative model which is adjusted to the needs of Economy.
This translocation is also connected with a transformation of the model of socialization. The traditional model of socialization “school-family-society” gives gradually its position to a new communicative plexus of Mass Media and to a new frame of values which is derived from a self-centered and private model of the market economy.
These crucial changes differentiate the methodological-learning pattern of Education. The basic priority of Education is not yet the cultivation of methodology, comparative analysis and critical way of thinking, but the complete specialization, collection of information and the harmonization of the given knowledge to the needs of productivity.
Thus, instead of having Education transforming the economic and constitutional systems using its accumulated knowledge and values, it receives the influence of Economy and is differentiated in order to follow the changes in it.The critical question which is posed today in the field of educational procedure is the following: in the basis of which methods and through which educational procedures is it possible for the technical novelties, the evolution in information and communication, the new needs that arise from the changes in the labor production to come to terms with the growth of knowledge and critical analysis?
This mediation demands two primary objectives: the rejection concerning the neutrality of technology and novelty and the acknowledgement that their acceptance leads to the transformation of social relations and values.Secondly, we should accept that collaboration, social justice, equality and freedom constitute the broaden frames of values through which Education and socio-economical structure should evolve and be adjusted.