The word ‘Education’ is derived from the Latin word ‘educare’, meaning ‘to bring up, rear, educate’. Education is defined as the process of imparting knowledge, skills, morals, attitudes and values from one person to another. It is also the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, morals, beliefs, habits, and personal development. Education is also the act or process of sharing or acquiring general knowledge or skills. Education can be formal or informal.
Formal Education
Formal education refers to a systematic, curriculum-based, teacher-directed learning that takes place within a recognized institution such as a school, college, or university. Formal education is based on a set curriculum and starts from kindergarten/nursery school or pre-primary school.
It is a kind of education that students get from trained teachers in classrooms through a structured curriculum. Formal education is carefully planned and provided by teachers who have a basic level of competency. This competency is standardized through formal training of teachers, to provide them with a certification that may be different in different countries.
Characteristics
- Formal education takes place in classrooms.
- Formal education planned, and structured hierarchically.
- School fees are paid regularly.
- It has a chronological grading system.
- It has a designed syllabus and is subject-oriented.
- The syllabus has to be covered within a specific time period.
- The students are taught by the teachers
- The teachers receive formal training to get specific qualifications.
- Formal education is recognized by the state or country as well as industry.
- People who attend this education get certificates or degree upon completion.
- They also get job opportunities on the basis of level of formal education they have achieved.
Informal Education
Informal education refers to a system of education that takes place outside the classroom or curriculum context. It is the process of learning from activities related to daily life experiences, work, family, or leisure.
Informal education refers to a system of education that is not provided and sponsored the state or country. It does not lead to any certification and is not structured or classroom based. For example, a mother teaching her children to do household chores such as cleaning the house, washing clothes, or cooking food.
Therefore, informal education means a process of imparting skills or knowledge that is not formal or recognized by the state or country. This education isn’t also organized or structured like it is in formal education. Informal education involves the knowledge, skills, values, beliefs acquired from incidents, books, radios, televisions, films, elders, peers, and parents. Informal learning helps little ones to learn their mother language. It also helps them to grow and adapt to the ways and traditions of the society, and they learn to adapt to the environment in a much better manner.
Characteristics
- Informal education is not planned, and not structured.
- It is independent of boundary walls.
- There is no definite syllabus.
- It is not pre-planned and has no timetable.
- No fees are required as we get this education through daily experience and by learning new things.
- It is a continuous or lifelong process in a natural way.
- Informal education is not recognized by the state or country but is important in the overall development of the individual.
- It is mostly incidental and verbal.
- Informal education takes place wherever.