Should education be solely the responsibility of the government? Should it be the responsibility of the citizens? Are those the same? Should it be a local issue, with little government oversight? Should it be public, or government? What is the difference, and What is it currently?

Currently, education is “government” education.  There is little “public” left to the educational process.  Originally, education was to be a private matter of the citizens (18th-19th centuries) and when it was, it did not suffer from many of the issues present today.  Not because these issues did not exist–e.g. dropout rates– rather it was that education privately managed was more effective in that time period.

Over the years, education gradually was seen as a neccessary commodity for nation building.  Citizenry was a commodity as fervent nationalism grew throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries and due to this the need for controlled production and outcomes was seen as a necessary.  What was the trade off?  Possibly the gradual loss of freedom for students and parents to make their own educational decisions.

Where then are we now?  Well, with the advances of technology, quite possibly the world is advancing back to personal control of the process.  Web 2.0 among other venues… the Fourth Logic endeavor for instance… are full of examples of companies working to place educational decisions back into the hands of those recieving the education.  But, what will this look like when education moves away from being government controlled and moves towards being privately controlled?

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