“School is the most important agency of education.”

–Yogendra Sharma

The study of schools has been of essential interest to many since the earliest times.

School is universal.

Schools and education are the best and most important human inventions.

School is one social agency created by society to educate its members. It has become the primary educative agency of society, making it a major and indispensable social institution in the world.

“School”- derived from the Greek word skhole, which means leisure.

In ancient Greece, leisure places were used for self-development, where the Greeks discussed matters related to enriching their knowledge, skills, and virtues.

“Schools is a special environment, where a certain quality of life and certain types of activities and occupations are provided with the object of securing the child’s development along desirable lines.”

–John Dewey

“Schools are institutions developed by civilized man for the purpose of aiding in the preparation of the young to be well adjusted and efficient members of the society.”

-JS Ross

“Schools are institutions, which require full-time attendance of specific age groups in teacher- supervised classrooms for study of graded curricula.” -Everette Reimer

Nowadays, new alternative delivery modes of education are emerging.

The school has always been regarded as the most indispensable educative agency in the formation and transformation of individuals and society.

“Although school is only one ‘teacher’ among several that form the social institution of education, it is indisputable that it is still the primary educative agency of society.” –Scotter (1991)

School is considered as the most important agency of education on the basis of the following argument.

1. It is unfounded to call a person educated if he had never been through school or college. Admittedly, a person can obtain education through a number of means – family, internet, mass media, library, and church.

2. School is one of the best mediums through which the national goals for human resource development, peace, order, eradication of poverty, and progress of the country can be realized. School is the chief arm of the state to ensure progress in all aspects of human life.

3. Without the assistance of school, family cannot by itself perform task of educating a child, especially along specialized occupational skills, such as teaching, engineering, medicine, physics, accountancy, and the like.

4. School is the only educational agency, which aims to complete the development of individuals, i.e., the development of mind, body, morals, spirit, among others.

5. The school’s extent of contribution to education is indispensable that no other educative agency can hope to replace

The discussion about schools has been the favorite subject of people from different walks of life. For example, the analysis of school and its role in social, economic, political, cultural, moral, and global life has been the interest of social philosophers, reformers, politicians, economists, policy makers, developmentalists, scholars, and other professional groups.

Numerous fields have put interest in schools such as philosophy, psychology, law, history, economics, and political science.

Philosophy looks into the deeper meaning of the existence as goals of schools in the individuals and society.

Psychology provides learning theories and principles as well as development stages of the learners that guide effective and meaningful teaching and learning process.

Law provides legal framework to which teaching and managing schools are practiced.

“There is no single discipline that has sole privilege of analyzing schools, but all these disciplines bring out a meaningful and integrated collection of understanding of schools as a formal educative institution.”