敎育正義輪 序說

Abstract

When we understand education as a kind of social institution, education is, I believe, one of the departments to which the concept of justice may be taken to be the prime principle in enaction and observation of all institutional rules and regulations. Problems and issues of educational justice mostly come about when some conflicts take place among ideas and actions about the distribution of educational opportunities. The genuine sense of educational opportunity is not the same as schooling opportunity, but a kind of opportunity in which one can be nurtured in a valuable system of goals, contents and methods. The concept of educational justice is not tantamount to the concept of educational equality, since the equal distribution of educational opportunities may possibly be unjust in a certain conception of justice, e.g. in Platos Republic where educational opportunities must be distributed justly, not necessarily equally. When we distribute opportunities of education in accordance with the egalitarian conception of equality and justice, some of, perhaps most of, peoples educational needs of a great variety cannot be gratified by an allegedly uniform program. When we conceive of education as social welfare, any educational program may be conducive to the individual growth of all the recipients, a promotion of well-being as well. Since educational programs can be developed in as many a kind as individual needs for growth, the cost of resources spent for each program could be a possible measure in which we can assess to each educational opportunity to be distributed. In order for the educational system to be just and humane, it is necessary to socially institute the minimal level of growth for everyone and to provide each with opportunities to realize that growth motive, on the one hand; and to allocate the rest of educational resources for the individual maximization of everyones growth, on the other hand. Taken as social investment, education may be planned for the growth of the society as a whole. The educational opportunities created thereby would be open to the limited talent who are expected to playa certain role in the achievement of the investment goals. In this case, just must be all the formalities and procedures to recruit those people equivilent to the actualization of social investment motives and goals.