The government of any country is an extremely fundamental organ. It is through the government that various activities of a nation are undertaken. The government acts as the overall management of a country. This occurs through assurance of coordination of all national activities in a bid for a healthy nation. For proper management of activities in a country, the government has been divided into different arms. Each of the arms is entrusted a set of duties, which have to be in line with the goals of the overall government. Although, the government has allocated some of its roles to the private sector, it has to be responsible of how those roles are undertaken. Being the overall protector of the nation, there is need for practicing excellent management skills that monitor how activities are undertaken in the country. However, the government has to be involved directly in some of the roles that are being undertaken. The government plays critical role in different fields such as the economy, defense, health care, education, and the environment and each of these sectors is unique on how it is handled depending on the influence it may have to the society. Excellent investment and concentration in education by the government through various strategies would help in building a dynamic nation.
Education is an extremely critical social element in any country. It is a major determinant of the performance of a given economy. Education is usually used to show the face of a nation based on the principles that it stands for, as well as the standard that it sets for citizens of a given country to the outside world. This means that education has to be respected as a critical social element in the society. Exclusive respect for education will only be realized through governments’ intervention to the wellbeing of the education systems that exist in different countries. The government may intervene into the education sector through various processes or procedures. These are ways that may have direct impact to the student, as well as indirect influence to the student’s education (FriedmanFoundation 1).
The first role that the government may play in ensuring proper education system in a country is setting standards for students. It would be worthless for the government to allow students to get into a system without proper understanding of what it entails and what would be the driving force in the education system. Setting standards for students is defined by the activity of bringing up research-based expectations for the growth, achievement, and success of a student in terms of education. For example, the government of the United States has partnered with the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Offices (CCSSO) to develop set of national standards known as The Common Core State Standards Initiative. This partnership has been extremely helpful in defining the way forward for students in the United States (Tooley 76). It has become extremely easy to monitor the trend of a student in respect to what the system expects him or her to do within a given period in school.
The system that ensures excellent performance of given students is existence of a syllabus for a given country. Different governments hire experienced teachers and education researchers to carry out research on the best elements to involve in an education system. These are the elements that form the syllabus of a country. The government ensures that necessary elements that the researchers may require in the process of setting up a syllabus are available. It is the role of the government to evaluate whether the syllabus that has been developed suits the economy’s labor demands. Also, the government may compare the set syllabus with one form a developed country that has undergone similar development path (FriedmanFoundation 1). This is a form of benchmarking and it is acceptable to show the most suitable syllabus for the country.
The efficiency of a syllabus as an educational tool may be tested through an examination. This is a formal test for students who have gone through a given education system. Since the syllabus that has been developed is for use in the entire country, it would not be confirmed to be effective if each school was allowed to set an independent exam for its students. In this case, standard of education will not have been met in the entire nation. As a result of this, the government should come up with a national assessment program. There are various forms of assessment that a government would consider. There may be summative, formative, or interim forms of assessment developed under the common core standards of education (FriedmanFoundation 1). A common assessment process in the entire nation would mean that all students in the country are tested equally.
The other influence that the government has in its role in education is funding school projects. Education system is always complemented by presence of educational facilities. These facilities include classrooms, staff quarters, and educational staff facilities such as laboratories. The government should facilitate the construction of such facilities through provision of necessary funds to erect the needed facilities. These facilities act as the supporting factors for proper learning (Tooley 46). For example, high schools will always need laboratories for practical lessons and research. The government supports such projects by ensuring that it offers a substantive measure of the required money to fund the different projects.
Since the government may not fund such projects fully, it gives room or chance for schools to gather their own money for development. This has been achieved through existence of different bodies in different countries to control the amount of fee payable to schools. This mainly happens among public schools while private institutions are allowed to charge their own fee, which has to be determined through involvement of exclusive measures. In private schools the fee involves excellent auditing and financial planning to ensure that the owner of the school is not out to defraud citizens off their money. The defined fee is usually presented to the available education governing body in a country for evaluation (Rose 298). The fee has to be approved by the government before the school releases it as the required fee for students.
As the government pushes the level of education in a country, it should be extremely keen on the kind of supportive measures that it extends to the society. Following different capabilities that people hold, there is need for consideration of the different classes of people. Different people in the society have different financial strengths. This means that what one family can afford in education is not the same thing that the other family can afford. The government should be conscience of the different classes of people in the country and develop an educational system that will accommodate all individuals. This means that there should be schools that receive higher government funds than others. Before this process is employed proper evaluation of the society around the school is needed. This will help the government to identify the schools that require exclusive assistance. This would ensure that students from different areas with different economic status earn equal levels of education (Rose 296). This would be a reliable measure to rule out the element of some students being advantaged than others causing extensive difference in performance in national examinations.
Also, the government may play role in ensuring that the needy students in the society acquire necessary resources to assist them in achieving their educational dreams. This happens following the government availing sponsorship programs for the needy students who perform extremely well in high school and have qualified for higher education at the university or college. A program may be developed by the necessary educational body like the ministry of education to accommodate such an initiative. This program should be managed with extreme keenness and dedication to ensure that only the qualified students access the facility. Any form of corruption that may be found in the program should be scrapped to protect the needs of the needy in the society with educational ability but cannot afford the education. There should be excellent interviewing process for the people who may be viewed as viable candidates for the educational program (Rose 301).The chosen candidates should be ready to take the opportunity. This is defined by the past performance of the student and dedication to education.
Apart from the government, there would be other bodies that may be willing to support education in a given country. There are various organizations that take education sponsorship as their method of giving back to the society. These organizations usually invest a lot of money as they aim at making themselves significant in the society and the country at large. This means that the government should support such organizations. This may be done by the central government of a nation allowing foreign companies to operate in the land (Rose 299). This may be done by cheap licensing and sensitization of the educational stand of the government.
The government may engage the non-governmental organizations in educational activities of the country. For example, such organizations should act as sponsors of activities such as co-curricular activities to make the interaction between the organizations and schools fruitful. In the process of sponsoring such activities as athletics, the organizations will realize there are other openings in the education system it would fill. It may start mentorship programs in institutions, which would create close connection between students and the institution. This would be significant in exposing the students with schooling challenges to the sponsors and they may benefit from scholarships from the institutions. However, the government may intervene in such instances by recommending the needy students, as well as institutions in the country (Rose 299). It should ensure that there is fair use of the money that has been given.
The government remains a vital element in the education of a given country. It should be at the forefront in campaign for excellence in education. This is mainly achieved through existence of commitment by government officials towards an education system. The government supports education in different ways. At some point, the government is directly involved in the educational activities of a given country. Also, it has to facilitate funding for facilities, and the needy students who may possess excellent educational skills. Collaboration with stakeholders such as non-governmental organizations and foreign governments should be encouraged to boost education in a given country.
Works Cited
FriedmanFoundation. "The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice." The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. <http://www.edchoice.org/The-Friedmans/The-Friedmans-on-School-Choice/The-Role-of-Government-in-Education.aspx>.
Rose, Pauline. "Strategies For Engagement: Government And National Non-Government Education Providers In South Asia." Public Administration and Development 31.4 (2011): 294-305. Print.
Tooley, James. E.G. West: economic liberalism and the role of government in education. London: Continuum International Pub. Group, 2008. Print.
