Education as a Social Service

Abstract

The concept of education as a social service available to all citizens throughout their lifetime, as distinct from education considered as the privilege of young people six to sixteen years of age, is one of the most promising concepts to emerge recently in Western Europe. That this educational service is to be an official agent of social change represents, moreover, a considerable departure from the classic structures of European education which traditionally have been criticized for their class consciousness and tendency to maintain the status quo. Henceforth, "the role of the educational system is not only to transmit the cultural heritage of European countries and to preserve the constant, basic values of society," resolved the European Ministers of Education in June 1973, "but also to enrich this heritage and to facilitate the democratic evolution of society."