Importance of literacy and education for the wellbeing of society

Education plays an important role in the socio-cultural, legal, and economic development of society. Through knowledge culture is transferred and transformed, social functions and statuses are reproduced and created. We invite you to consider these connections in more detail.

Why is literacy important?
The key problem of modern time is that the reformed society experienced a structural crisis of values and changed their role. The new ideas of individuals and social groups about good and evil, the encouraged and condemned norms of behavior acquire a chaotic character.
The person who enters life today experiences psychological influence from the media and the real world. A society which found itself in an enchanted circle of contradictions pushes young people to self-destruction.
According to the poll results, more than 50% of young men and women of 17-20 years old are ready to earn money in any possible way. About 15% are prepared for the risk. More than 40% of the unemployed interviewed people answered that they would agree to commit a crime for a high salary.
Initially, people are free, sociable, and capable of creating. They are deprived of these properties if the arising conditions prevent the manifestations of human nature. In a modern society, large groups of people have become dependent particles of an economic and social mechanism. A person deprived of control over his labor and salary becomes alienated, remote from other people and ultimately from himself. Alienation occurred in education, culture, art, family and other spheres.
How can this problem be solved? The government of developed countries considers the educational environment as strategic for the progress of national economic and as the most important sphere of human life. The main value of the present and the future is not technology but intellect. Academic activity is aimed to ensure the self-realization of an individual. Subjective experience leads to the self-development, allows a person to successfully adapt to social life and gives a chance to improve it. The importance of education increases even more on a background of modern crisis.
Over the last century the concern for the development, survival, protection and socialization of youth gradually becomes a state matter involving clear organization and planning, the growth of state care for students:

• state control over education;
• recognition of responsibility for young people;
• obligation to provide children with knowledge;
• legal fixation of the necessary levels of education;
• possibility to study;
• duty to learn, etc.

Education refers to human rights and therefore should receive priority in the allocation of financial resources. As a result, academic activities will lead to the development of creative abilities, deepening of participation in all spheres of society.

Levels of education

Scientists have identified the following social adaptation levels of modern education:

1. Micro level – self-education;
2. Meso level – education in the family, individual education;
3. Macro level – training in state and non-state educational institutions;
4. Mega level – training in the framework of international programs, in the system of interstate cooperation, etc.

The sustainable functioning and development of education at all socio-adaptation levels ensures a dynamic renewal of the individual and society.

Problems of social development and education

Problems of modern education reflect the whole range of obstacles for social development existing in the world. Among the most significant can be identified:

1. Socioeconomic problems. This block of obstacles is related to state economic support (transfer of students from commercial to free places, special programs for orphans, social scholarships, rewards and grants).
2. The problem of choosing an educational institution. High responsibility and intensive pressure from the society prevent students from enrolling to the universities which they really like.
3. The problem of professional choice after graduation from an educational institution. The obstacles associated with employment are very common today. There is a lack of a state order for people graduated from universities. No proper social guarantees are provided for finding work on obtained specialty. All this creates significant difficulties not only for graduates but for the educational institutions themselves. Universities lose their value if obtaining a diploma does not lead to employment.
4. The problem of personal development and professional growth. Education should become a constant process which expands the abilities and experience of social interaction of all individuals. The government should provide an opportunity of post-graduate education. Such training not only provides an increase in the qualification of the employee but also opens up opportunities to receive new professions and specialties.
   1. The problem of integration into the global educational space. Today, real conditions are created for the interaction of educational systems of different states and regions (international projects, Internet, etc.). Without destroying the cultural basis of the nation, any country is oriented toward merger with the international environment. This provides a real development of modern society and increase of global literacy rate.

Trends in the development of education

The improvement of the quality of education, the creation of social and pedagogical programs for the youth development, increasing the social mobility of the individual and changing the socio-psychological atmosphere may be distinguished as the main current objectives. There are prerequisites for the transition to new models of educational policy (interaction of educational, economic, political, spiritual and other spheres of society), a shift from a unified to a variable form of education.
In the new socio-political and economic conditions, it is advisable to enhance the flexible educational standards and maintain the budget, forecast the development of professions, practice strategic planning, broad cooperation between center and regions of the country, and new information technologies. Without the implementation of these tasks, it is impossible to effectively manage the system of intensively renewing education.

An important role in this process is played by science. It should contribute to the retraining and advanced training of pedagogues, provide a real basis for the motivation of teaching staff. Students also should be interested in scientific activities, paper writing which is not only gain knowledge but also discover their own research potential.