Education has been instrumental in the establishment and advancement of civilizations throughout the ages. It has spread values and ideologies as well as stimulated new perspectives and discoveries. Ideally, education has the potential to be one of the most comprehensive tools available to facilitate sustainable development, helping individuals and communities grapple with the complicated challenges of caring for people and the planet. But, as history indicates, education itself is still evolving and not along a simple, easily identifiable trajectory.

The varied aims and structures of educational systems often make reforming education to fit the times a complex, multidimensional task. The outstanding differences between education systems can generally be attributed to disparate purposes, content and access. The varied biological, cultural, religious, economic and political aspects of education are briefly reviewed in this chapter. Both the structure of the learning environment and the teaching methods that are used determine how learning is promoted. Despite the diversity of educational systems, most education has historically been rooted in teaching techniques based on the transferral of facts and memorization. While such practices continue to exist in many places, they have been challenged by contemporary learning theories. The availability of diverse formats for learning, such as informal, non-formal and formal education, has contributed to changing who has access to education. Social media have also influenced how youth learn by altering the manner in which they acquire and process information. Diverse monitoring, testing and ranking have been employed in order to control the direction in which education evolves.

Purpose

Systems of education have had varied cultural, religious, nationalistic and/ or economic objectives. The motivating purposes behind these divergent systems have not always been obvious. But, stated or covert, the disparity of intentions has resulted in a myriad of different approaches that make defining quality education a difficult task.

As Émile Durkheim (1858– 1917) explained, the need for social cohesion has always been vital for societies, and education has been used by many as a vehicle to this end. Promoting a shared sense of belonging has been instrumental in gaining the loyalty of individuals in a group and creating a willingness to face mutual challenges.