See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/364283161

Education and Knowledge

Preprint · October 2022

CITATIONS READS
0 2,828

1 author:

Mohamed Rabie
professor/author
250 PUBLICATIONS 206 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Mohamed Rabie on 09 October 2022.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Education and Knowledge

Mohamed Rabie

Since the development of the early human societies, man’s search for food and physical security
and control over his living conditions has never stopped or failed to make progress. Progress
toward higher levels of material and cultural achievements has come as a result of four major
developments: technological innovations, economic change, sociocultural transformation, and
man’s struggle for freedom. All of which, however, could not have come without the right education,
which is the principal method through which societies produce and transmit knowledge from one
generation to another, disseminate information in society, preserve some values and traditions and
transform others, and introduce change in the form of new ideas and non-traditional ways of
thinking and living. This short paper intends to explain this process and highlight the importance of
education in taking the right steps to achieve the desired results.

The development of agriculture and the formation of permanent human settlements had laid
the foundations for both the idea of progress and social change. With agriculture man began to
produce and accumulate wealth, both portable and non-portable, and the concepts of progress,
education and social change were born. Educational institutions and research institutes tend to
control the flow of scientific information in society and influence the quantity and quality of
knowledge made available to students as well as to the masses. It is through education that people
become more socially and politically conscious, more motivated to work and participate in economic
and non-economic activities, and develop their capabilities to acquire new, more sophisticated
knowledge, and learn how to use knowledge to improve the quality of their lives and the lives of
others. But for education to instigate the desired transformations in society and produce the
technical and organizational know-how that is necessary to lead change, it has to have the right
institutions. teach the right knowledge and spread the right attitudes.

Educational institutions that cannot identify the opportunities and evaluate the obstacles facing
society are incapable of conceiving and leading change and helping build human capital. Education
that fails to give students the right knowledge, and instill in them the right attitudes, and equip them
with the right tools to identify problems and opportunities and face life challenges can and often
does create an added obstacle to socioeconomic development. Without a good educational
system, therefore, it would be hard to see how a society could experience genuine sociocultural
and sociopolitical and socioeconomic transformation and make substantial progress.
 Knowledge and Society

In the post-industrial age, knowledge has become the most valuable asset that an individual or
society could have. Today, the wealth-generating potential of knowledge exceeds the combined
potential of natural resources and capital. This new development has aggravated problems of both
income and wealth inequality and sociocultural disparity in every society. People without the right
knowledge cannot find well-paying jobs, and most of those who do not have good sources of
income cannot get a good education because college tuitions are high and rising. Thus, poverty
nurtures ignorance and ignorance feeds poverty, while wealth and knowledge reinforce one
another, enabling the knowledge people to increase their wealth and the wealthy to gain more
knowledge.

People who work and live together in one society, usually seek self-satisfaction and social
recognition through work that enables them to build relationships with one another. Satisfaction
and recognition are normally obtainable in traditional societies through the cultivation of the land,
the worship of gods, the raising of children, and the serving of ideologies and ideological leaders.
In the new knowledge age, however, money and, to a lesser extent knowledge, seem to have
become the means to obtain self-satisfaction and social recognition, as well as wealth and power.
But money can only be legitimately obtained through gainful employment and, to a lesser extent,
through inheritance. People lacking the skills to gain and hold rewarding jobs cannot normally have
good incomes and consequently cannot get the satisfaction and social recognition they usually
seek and often deserve.

Knowledge, therefore, has become the primary means to gainful employment and a major
source of satisfaction and social recognition, and thus the key to living a rewarding and dignified
life. Nevertheless, the positive role of knowledge as far as society and economy are concerned
translates into less social cohesion, more socioeconomic disparity and increased sociocultural
diversification. It tends to empower people with the right education and attitudes, weaken people
without the right knowledge and work ethics, and undermine hierarchical social structures in
general. Thus, any society’s choice of social cohesion, cultural integrity, socioeconomic equality,
and ideological conformity can only be achieved at the expense of knowledge, freedom, creativity,
economic dynamism, and sociocultural transformation.

While ideological polarization is a cause of sociopolitical problems, socioeconomic

marginalization is a cause of radicalism and conflict that often causes crime and violence to spread

2
and become endemic. In most Third World societies, globalization coupled with ideological
polarization and socioeconomic marginalization, has weakened the nation state, reducing its ability
to control its economy and gain the trust and respect of its people to near zero. The nation state is
no longer able to prevent the widening of the socioeconomic gaps or the deepening of the
sociocultural divides in society by traditional measures. Only structural economic changes and
sociocultural transformations led by advanced educational institutions and programs can change
reality and perception in society in more positive ways; and, in the process, create new
socioeconomic and sociopolitical environments where opportunities multiply, and people live their
lives and pursue their dreams without fear.

Institutions of higher education engaged in teaching and research activities are tools to produce
knowledge; they are social machines to enlarge the stock of knowledge in every society and
enhance its ability to respond to the growing and changing economic and non-economic needs.
Educational institutions perform these tasks by conducting research to produce more knowledge
and acquiring and adapting relevant knowledge from the outside. In addition, these institutions
play a pivotal role in training the society’s future leaders and knowledge workers to become more
knowledgeable, more respectful of work, and more inclined to work in teams and accept change
as normal; they are also more able to teach students to be more tolerant of dissent, and more
committed to social and environmental causes. And as they try to achieve these lofty goals, they
tend to undermine outdated cultural values and bad attitudes and weaken unproductive social
relationships and harmful habits. This makes the right educational systems the primary institutions
to produce knowledge and deliver it to people, while arming its graduates with the right attitudes that
impel them to help themselves and others and improve the quality of life for all.

People engaged in the development of knowledge in particular are faced with a difficult
challenge. They need to make themselves understood by those who have little knowledge and make
knowledge affordable and accessible to those who have little money to buy it. They also need to
make knowledge itself capable of addressing the particular needs of those who need it most but can
afford it and use it least.

Education and Society

To do anything and do it right, individuals as well as groups and societies need to have certain tools
and cultural qualities and special skills and societal settings; things that are indispensable to making

3
the right decisions and reaching the desired goals. Noted among such qualities and skills are the
following:

1. The right education.

2. The right tools.

3. The right attitudes.

4. the right institutions.

5. The right societal systems; and

6. The right information.

The right education is probably the easiest thing to acquire; most people today have access to fairly
good education either at home or abroad. Foreign governments and international organizations,
realizing the importance of education to Third World societal development, have continued to offer
scholarships to good and needy students to study abroad, and help most states to build training
centers for technicians and professionals at home.

The right tools, however, are not as easy to acquire as the right education because tools in this
respect involve more than machines and other scientific equipment; they also involve research
institutes, trained researchers, qualified technicians, and more. In addition, modern tools cost
money and require advanced production and management systems to function properly and
contribute to reaching the desired societal goals.

As for the right attitudes, they are still more difficult to develop and instill in the minds and
hearts of children and students because they are a function of cultural values and traditions that
are most resistant to change. Cultural values, traditions and habits are manifestations of age-old
convictions and life experiences and sacred belief systems that tend to shape individual and group
characters and greatly influence social relationships and association in society. Traditions and
religious convictions, social values and obligations, blood ties and group loyalty form a sociocultural
process through which individual and group behavior and attitudes are internalized. Therefore, only
education and the upbringing of children can modify older attitudes and instill in students the right
ones, and systemically transform other cultural values to be compatible with the changing needs of
society and the unfolding developments of the age in which society lives.

Building the right institutions and societal systems is time consuming, costly, and takes much

4
effort to accomplish; it involves the state and the elite, and needs imagination and deep thinking,
and oftentimes outside help as well. Regardless of the many obstacles that society may encounter
in trying to develop the right institutions, there is a dire need for the establishment of new
educational, social, political, and economic institutions that meet society’s growing and changing
needs and foresee future challenges. Societies, moreover, need societal systems to coordinate the
many functions and objectives society seeks to accomplish. Such systems, however, are a function
of scientific knowledge, modern management systems and changing societal needs; therefore,
they require continuous evaluation and updating.

The availability of the right information is a critical factor upon which the success of every social
and investment and commercial activity depends. Lack of adequate information increases the
possibility of mistakes and undermines the chances of success, regardless of the nature of the
activity and the projects in question. No economic plan or feasibility study for an industrial or
financial enterprise can be conducted without sufficient information regarding what are the needs
of society, how much competition exists in the marketplace, what are the financial requirements of
the intended project, and much more.

If these six cultural qualities and educational tools were to be ranked according to their
importance, the right attitudes and the right societal systems would be ranked first and second,
respectively. No society or nation can hope to achieve genuine progress without developing efficient
systems to coordinate and integrate the multiplicity of functions in society, and no system or institution
can be productive and competitive without arming its workers and managers with the right attitudes
to value work and time and work honestly.

The contribution of education to sociocultural transformation, economic development and

societal change depends on the high expectations and aversions it creates; it depends also on the
kind of skills and attitudes and discipline it provokes society to adopt. Blindly processing more
people through schools and universities without paying enough attention to the quality of education
and society’s needs is a good recipe for political instability and popular frustration and
disillusionment. Education that cannot meet the minimum needs of people and fails to understand
its societal roe and recognize the stage of development in which society lives can have and often
does have negative consequences.

Education that comes with the wrong attitudes such as despising menial work and having no
appreciation for time and hard work is more likely to reduce the productivity of individuals rather
than improves it. In contrast, education that comes with the right attitudes and knowledge is more
5
likely to increase the productivity of every graduate and his commitment to national and human
causes. Education that recognizes the value of the right attitudes and strives to instill such attitudes
in children is the answer to the negative impact of traditional upbringing and ideological polarization.
Children given the right education and the right attitudes are not only an asset capable of making
progress, but also social tools to teach illiterate parents and neighbors and help them become more
socially and politically and environmentally aware, and more productive and active participants in the
affairs of their societies.

Leaders of countries are shaped by their own educational systems and institutions and
experiences. Therefore, if education does not perform well today and produce enlightened leaders
and good professionals, neither the country nor the economy will perform well tomorrow. Meeting
the increasing challenges of educating younger generations today is the only insurance policy to
guarantee that both society and country will have a bright future. Students need not only acquire
the right education and how to use research tools, but they also need first and foremost to acquire
the right attitudes.

To start with, the state has to authorize the establishment of a new college to train teachers
how to manage schools and instill in students the right attitudes and respect for time and work. This
college would be asked to develop a school administration system and continually evaluate such a
system and make proposals to upgrade the teaching methods and the curricula. The proposed
college would grant a master in school administration (MSA) in pre-school, elementary school, and
high school administration. The college would accept only the highly competent teachers who are
college graduates and have completed at least 5 years of teaching experience. Arab counties, for
example, have about 300,000 schools, with only few of them are managed by competent
administrators. If only the principal of each school and his deputy were to be required to be MSA
holders, replacing all current principals and their deputies with professionally trained ones over 20
years would require training about 100,000 administrators a year. A small country like Jordan, with
a population of some 10 million, would need about 1200 graduates annually.

Since my motto is, “Knowledge not shared is Knowledge wasted, and the more we share, the more we
gain people of knowledge” I ask all readers to recommend every article and book they like because it
will help inform others. We all share the responsibility to make our world more hospitable to peace,
social justice, and freedom; a lofty goal we cannot reach without spreading knowledge and awareness
in every corner of our mother earth.

6
 Prof. Rabie is a distinguished professor of International Political Economy; he attended 5 universities
and taught at 11 others on four continents. He has published 60 books, about 200 scholarly papers,
and over 2000 newspaper articles. Books are 16 in English, one in Albanian, and 41 in Arabic. English
Books include Saving Capitalism and Democracy; Global Economic and Cultural Transformation; A
Theory of Sustainable Sociocultural and Economic Development; The Global Debt Crisis and its
Socioeconomic Implications. (Palgrave Macmillan 2013-2017) One of the English books, “History of
Racism”, was translated and published in six other languages: German, French, Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, and Polish. Arabic Books include 3 poetry collections, 2 novels, and a story; the rest is
mostly academic books and collections of ideas and reflections. Prof. Rabie is president of the Arab
Thought Council in Washington, DC, a member of the Arab Thought Forum, and a fellow of the
Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation since 1992. Grants and scholarships financed his education from
high school to receiving his Ph.D. in 1970 from the University of Houston; grants covered studies in
Jordan, Egypt, Germany, and America. He is the winner of the State of Palestine Lifetime Achievement
Award for scholarly publications and several other awards. His writings and positions reflect a strong
commitment to peace, social justice, freedom, human development, as well as social, cultural,
economic, and environmental sustainability.

www.yazour.com

View publication stats