In Defence of the Human in Education

The title incorporates the assumption that the ‘human' in education is being threatened by certain processes. The guiding questions are : What are these processes and what constitutes the ‘human' in education ? Which activities characteristically performed by human beings are so central that they seem definitive of a life that is truly human and which changes or transitions in educational thinking are compatible with the continued existence of a being as a member of human kind and which are not ? It is argued that the present debate on education is still dominated by the language of performance and global economic comparison.
Educational practice must and will have to help the individual through a confluence of insights in his/her journey through life to form independent judgement.