The purpose of education is to cultivate people's overall goal. It is related to the fundamental question of what kind of social role and quality the educated should be trained to be. It is the starting point of educational practice.
According to the needs of certain social productive forces, production relations and people's own development. Historically, it varies with different social systems, national cultural traditions and educational ideas. It has class nature in class society. The education in Athens, ancient Greece requires the cultivation of people with harmonious physical and mental development; Spartan education needs to cultivate brave and skilled people. China's feudal society demanded the cultivation of literati in Ming Dynasty.
Features:
ideal
The purpose of education is to determine an ideal specification for training talents, which is the ultimate unified goal pursued by education. However, due to various factors, it is impossible for every student to reach the ideal level.
hierarchy
Generally speaking, there are several levels: the educational purpose of the country (or political party), the educational purpose of the school (training goal, principal's thought), the educational purpose of students (including parents) and the educational purpose of teachers. In particular, the educational purpose of teachers directly affects the development of students. There are both connections and differences between all levels, and they are all guided and restricted by the national educational purpose.
Unity of generality and individuality
By analyzing the educational aims at all times and all over the world, we can draw the conclusion that the educational aims include two levels: cultivating people's generality and individuality, or focusing on cultivating people's generality, or cultivating people's individuality, or both, which is related to the guiding ideology of determining educational aims.