Politics is a social phenomenon and a social fact that no one can avoid. Any social member or social organization has a relationship with politics in some way, and education is no exception. As a social undertaking, education is deeply restricted by politics, and education in any society embodies the political characteristics of that society. As a political tool, education plays an important role in influencing social and political life, maintaining social stability and promoting social development.
The relationship between education and politics is that education in a certain society should reflect certain social and political requirements and in turn serve politics, which is an objective law.
The fundamental task of education is to train people for a certain society. Cultivating people with political orientation, ideology and moral quality through education is determined by the social, political and economic system.
The purpose of education is to cultivate the educated into what kind of people, that is, the quality specifications that should be achieved in cultivating talents. Generally speaking, the education in ancient slave society and feudal society was mainly to train a few rulers and intellectuals who served them, but it also showed specific differences because of the differences of nationalities, cultural traditions and educational guiding ideology.
The purpose of China's social education for slaves is "ethics", and they should have fighting skills. The so-called "ethical relationship" means to be noble and humble, not condescending, so that the educated can consciously safeguard the patriarchal hierarchy. In order to suppress and plunder slaves, we must be able to fight well. For this educational purpose, the aristocratic children of slave owners need to receive the so-called six arts education such as etiquette, music, archery, imperial examination, calligraphy and mathematics.
In the slave society of ancient Greece, the rulers of Sparta ruled 250,000 slaves with 30,000 Spartans, making education completely subordinate to the needs of cruel armed suppression of slaves and foreign wars. The purpose of education is to train brave soldiers loyal to the ruling class. Boys among slave owners' children will leave their families to receive collective military sports training from the age of seven. At first, I was organized as a team and lived in a collective military life. 12 years old, the examinee transferred to the youth team and received more severe training. 18 years old, those who pass the qualification will join the NCO corps and receive formal military training. At the age of 20, he finished his studies and became a soldier. The purpose of education determines the content of Spartan pure military education, and cultural knowledge education is basically not implemented.
The purpose of education in China feudal society was to "study hard and become an official", that is, to cultivate loyal ministers and gentlemen for the feudal dynasty. After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the imperial examination system was implemented, and education became a vassal of the imperial examination, which was brought into the track of cultivating bureaucratic talents. Because the rulers admire Confucianism and emphasize "rule by virtue". Therefore, Confucianism was emphasized as the main educational content, and the constancy of feudal order of "the teaching of human relations" and "the three cardinal guides and the five permanents" was instilled in the monarch, minister and son to consolidate feudal rule. "Four Books and Five Classics" has become the main teaching material used in past dynasties.
In the feudal society of Europe, the religious class that held state power monopolized school education. They established parish schools, monastery schools, monastery schools and missionary universities. The main purpose of school education is to cultivate priests who are devout to God, obey religious and political rights and engage in religious activities. They take the Bible, which preaches Christian teachings, as their main educational content. Three subjects (grammar, rhetoric and dialectics) and four studies (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music) are called "seven arts of freedom", which are permeated with religious spirit and serve for understanding and believing in Christian teachings. The eldest son of the aristocratic children of secular feudal lords was sent to a higher feudal official's castle from the age of seven to receive "servant education" and "attendant education" in order to cultivate knights who are loyal to feudal lords, brave and good at fighting, and proficient in feudal etiquette. The main content of education is the seven skills of a knight, namely, riding a horse, swimming, throwing a gun, fencing, hunting, playing chess and reciting poems.
In capitalist society, in order to meet the requirements of state rule and new productive forces, the bourgeoisie has formulated dual educational purposes for school education: one is to train talents in state affairs management and scientific and technological elites, and the other is to train workers suitable for large-scale machine production. Rulers exert bourgeois influence on the educated politically and ideologically through school education. In order to ensure that educational content can serve educational purposes, in some capitalist countries, the competent department of the central government directly controls the editing right of textbooks. For example, in Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is responsible for examining textbooks and appointing textbook publishers for compulsory education schools.
Only in socialist society, the purpose of education has changed fundamentally. Socialism requires the thorough exploitation of the system politically and economically, and the realization of communism without exploitation and oppression. The purpose of socialist education is to cultivate workers with socialist consciousness and culture who are all-round developed morally, intellectually, physically and aesthetically. The purpose and content of socialist education is a reflection of the socialist political and economic system.
(b) The influence of politics on educational opportunities and rights
Who can enjoy school education, what kind of education level and how to allocate educational opportunities are directly determined by the political system of a certain society.
After entering the class society, the ruling class and the ruled class are not equal politically and economically, and so is the right to education. In slave society, schools were specially set up for the children of slave owners. In ancient India, the law clearly stipulated that anyone who allowed people of low castes in sudra to receive cultural education would be sentenced to death immediately. In the Northern Wei Dynasty, established by the nobles of Xianbei slave owners in China, during the reign of Emperor Tuoba Tao, working people were forbidden to study in private schools, and teachers who disobeyed orders would be put to death, and the owners who set up private schools would be beheaded. In feudal society, even within the ruling class, the right to education has an obvious hierarchy. For example, in the universities of the Eastern Han Dynasty in China, only the children of bureaucrats with salaries of more than 600 stone can enter the school. In the Tang Dynasty, the central government established six schools and two libraries. Guo Zi School is limited to the children of civil and military officials above the third grade, imperial academy is limited to the children of civil and military officials above the fifth grade, four subjects are limited to the children of civil and military officials above the seventh grade, and law, calligraphy and arithmetic are limited to the children of officials above the eighth grade and the children of civilian landlords who have passed one of them. Hong Wen Pavilion and Chongwen Pavilion only allow children of the royal family and the Prime Minister to enter the school. In capitalist society, in order to meet the needs of the development of productive forces, various capitalist countries have abolished the feudal hierarchy of education and advocated educational equality. With the promulgation of the Universal Compulsory Education Law, school education has been popularized. However, there is still political and economic inequality between the bourgeoisie and the working people, which also leads to substantive inequality in the right to education. Although on the surface, colleges and universities are open to all school-age young people who are suitable for studying, what kind of schools they can enter and whether they can enter depends not only on their academic performance, but also on whether they can afford high tuition fees. For example, according to the data provided by the US government in 1976, the average annual income is more than 3,000 US dollars, less than 3,000 to 5,999 US dollars, less than 9,000 to 10499 US dollars, less than 13500 to 14999 US dollars, and more than/kloc- French workers account for 49.8% of the total population, and only 10.2% of college students are workers' children. The upper class accounts for 4.5% of the total population, and their children go to college, accounting for 57% of college students. The above situation shows that it is not only due to the constraints of family economic conditions, but also the lack of books and newspapers in poor families, low level of parents' knowledge, large family population and poor housing conditions, which will also bring various difficulties to learning. The situation of upper-class families is just the opposite. Unequal educational opportunities, similar to those in the United States and France, exist in various capitalist countries to varying degrees.