Career Education

A competitive world motivates people to seek a higher education that can mold their future. Career education is a systematic program designed for students. It is a basic and increasingly relevant component of student and adult learning. It includes activities and experiences designed to increase knowledge of self, occupations, training paths, job searching skills and decision-making strategies.

Many schools and colleges provide courses as well as counseling on career education that helps in nurturing the ""whole person"". Career education programs are designed to enable students discover their potential. These programs focus primarily on three interconnected areas, learner, interpersonal and career development. Within these three areas, students acquire an understanding of their critical and analytical skills.

A comprehensive career education program enlightens students on the relevance of their school experience. It is designed to give students a jump-start in their career through exploration of a variety of career opportunities. It is also intended to ensure that each student receives a quality education to prepare for higher education and their first job in a competitive market.

The strategies of career education programs include career contextual learning, which emphasizes the application of academics in areas beyond the classroom.

The programs help students develop learning skills and strategies that they could use in the workplace. It makes them manage and become responsible for their own learning.

Online career education has grown in popularity. More and more people choose online classes over traditional education in the classroom. Universities and colleges are responding to this growing need by offering a wide variety of online programs, classes, and degrees.

Career education programs have proved to be very beneficial for students. They encompass educational plans that define their aptitudes, abilities and values. Students relate their abilities to specific careers and prepare a research project on an occupation, which matches their goals and abilities.

Education, Meaning, Aim and Function

The process of defining the meaning of Education is to problematize its lexicology and re-conceptualize it. An example is illustrated from real day-life. A multinational company involved in the making of advanced pharmaceutical products decides to get rid of its wastes in a cheaper manner rather then waste-treat them. They dump the wastes around the coast of a poorer African continent based on the company's policy of maximum profits. Are the board of directors in the company educated? They are, one can assume for rhetorical comfort. An illiterate, native-tribe living in the rainforest jungles of Papua New Guinea doesn't know the meaning of Environmental jargon: 'Reduce, Recycle & Reuse'; yet, they conserve and sustain the environment, based on the level of skills known to them. Are the people of the rainforest uneducated just because they are illiterate?

The problems connected with narrowness of meaning called Education emerge within the contextuality of the above mentioned examples, and the conceptual difficulties involved in attempting to centre meaning upon Education is by all means complicated. So the meaning of education has to emerge from this narrowness to the broadness of meaning. In its broadness of meaning Education is the process of 'stimulating' the 'person' with Experiences, Language and Ideology, beginning from the time of birth and continuing till the time of death. This meaning of Education would give rise to the Aim, as disseminating formally, non-formally, culturally, nationally, scientifically and ritually-skills, literacy, knowledge, norm and values, as pedagogies of the institutions giving rise to the aim. This aim would be directly related to the perpetuation of that Society as an ideological structure. Aim would again determine the Function of Education The function of Education would be thus related to how meaning and aims are synchronized into processes called experience of application. The thesis statement of this paper is developed on three levels-one, the meaning of education as the stimulation of person a with language, experiences and ideology-two, aim of education being dissemination and perpetuation, and three, function, as synchronized processing.

The development of the Meaning of Education as a stimulation of a person from birth to death with language, experiences and ideology makes the person, a Being of the process as an Ontology. This process starts right from birth as affective language, for example, a mother's cooing, to a process where the person becomes a cognitive structure, as I-the speaking subject or ego-subject. Here, the individual undergoes the norms, traditions of the society's culture and learns to adapt and appropriate the symbolic codes of the society. Along with this process, the individual also learns to formalize his or her adaptation and appropriation to a literacy process i.e. developing skills and competencies. Thus we find that the Meaning of Education to be multi-leveled as well as multiple -oriented, through both formalist and non-formalist institutions of society. The formalist institutions which procreate the Meaning of Education are the Schools, the Government, Law and Order etc. Other formalist institutions like family, religion and native-traditions can work both openly as well as silently to orient an individual to the meaning of experience as the educated. For example a mother's oral transmission of a folk song to the daughter is silent whereas a marriage function is a more open aspect as the performance of a culture's pedagogy. Thus language and experiences generate the codes for that society to experience the Meaning of Education, making possible for ideologies to exist.

Thus the meaning of Education would give rise to the Aim, as disseminating formally, non-formally, culturally, nationally, scientifically and ritually-skills, literacy, knowledge, norms and values as pedagogies. Dissemination would mean the spreading of the Society's cultural norms and values. It would also mean the spreading of Nationalism as democratic-pluralism, multiculturalism, diversity and celebration or its reverse as intolerance, authoritarianism through pedagogies; it is also the development of systematized pedagogies- promoted as theoretical and applied within the Society's Scientific and Technocratic institutions.

The Aim of Education would be directly related to the perpetuation of that Society as an ideological structure. The contemporariness of perpetuation would answer the questions related to the aim of Education being: empowerment, sustainability, preservation, minimization, conflict resolution, creativity and innovation.

The Aim of Education as well as the Meaning of Education give rise to the Function of Education as meaning, that is the synchronized processing of Aim and Function into a materialist, operational process. Synchronization of the Meaning and Aim of education takes places at various levels action. They are Making, Transmission and Implementation and Cultural-Simulation. At the Making level, the Function of Education is connected with 'Policy Formulation' related to the Meaning and Aim of Education. Policy Formulation can reflect on multiple issues like development, sustainability, scientific progress, promotion of rights, dignity and culture, energy management, disaster management, peace and conflict resolution. Once policies are made they are transmitted and implemented through the society's institutional structures like the legal system, the education system, the society's welfare management etc. Cultural-simulation takes place both formally and non -formally as society's religious, cultural and familial institutions. They perform many social and cultural roles within the home as well celebration or mourning for an occasion.

To conclude, it is pertinent to summarize the thesis developed that is, the Meaning of Education has been broadened to involve the stimulation of a Person, with Language, Experiences and Ideology. The Meaning of Education becomes vital to the Aim of Education as dissemination and perpetuation. The Meaning and Aim of Education becomes synchronized into the Function of education as Making, Transmission and Participation.

Why Should Adults Continue their Education?

Education has become a necessity to survive in this world. We cannot even imagine living in this world without education. This is why a lot of countries around the world have started to pay attention to providing education to their nationals.

The governments of all countries, especially those of developing and underdeveloped countries are taking great measures in making education reachable to all people.

There has been a lot of awareness among people regarding education and its necessity. Everyone sees to it that their kids get quality education. But across the world, there are many adults who may have discontinued their studies due to various reasons such as family commitments, poverty, and many other things.

Generally, when the literacy rate of any nation is calculated, the number of people who have dropped out of their schools mid-way leads to the decline in the literacy rate of that country. These adults must continue their education to boost the literacy rate of their nation, as well as in the eyes of the world.

Well educated elders can lead younger citizens in the right path. To guide their children in their studies, adults must be educated themselves.

As the adults have the responsibility of supporting their families, they may be reluctant to join these higher education programs. Adult education programs offer financial assistance and they help you apply for scholarships to help pursue your education. You can take advantage of these aids and continue your education as well as pursue a parallel career.

Your career will be more prosperous and you can get a more lucrative job if you complete your higher education. Your professional experience coupled with your achievements in the professional field will contribute to a stronger background for your employment. Education can only help strengthen your profile further.

These adult education programs can also be conducted online. If time is going to be a hindrance for you in pursuing your studies, you can enroll yourself in these online degree programs. The course materials are provided online and you are allowed to take your exams up online, as well. This will help you get your higher degrees in the comfort of your own home.

It is a good idea for adults who discontinued the studies in their earlier days to involve themselves in these programs. These programs not only offer a lot to the individuals, but they also improve the strength of a nation, which is only as great as the sum of its parts.