INFORMAL EDUCATION

Role of a Good Home

PEOPLE often enquire about the role of education in the promotion of moral values. To understand this one needs to differentiate between formal and informal education.

Formal education is basically meant for acquiring a job, with emphasis on the profession. A person preoccupied with developing or acquiring professional skills and knowledge will be completely job-oriented. Even if moral values are added to the syllabus, it will not have the desired impact.

Moral values are imperative for developing a better society. It makes one duty-conscious, develops a predictable character and helps imbibe social ethics. This is the task of informal education. The Spirit of Islam magazine is a part of this informal education. Informal education begins from home and covers all aspects of life. The means of this education can be varied—journalism, literature, intellectual exchange, meetings and libraries.

Just as formal education aims to impart quality education, the focus of informal education is to develop quality character in people, to give rise to simple living and high thinking, to help them realise the importance of peaceful behaviour, to make every individual live as a giver member of society and not merely as a taker and to engender civic sense. 


Moral values are imperative for developing a better society.
It makes one dutyconscious, develops a predictable character
and helps imbibe social ethics.


Today formal education is part of people’s economic lives. There is nothing wrong with this, but it should be accompanied by informal education. Youth should be trained for professional jobs within the campus, while, at home and in institutions, they should be given informal education. This is the only way to make our society better.

Outside the campus, the student meets a variety of people and has varied experiences. These experiences serve as a teacher. With a well prepared mind, a student can benefit a great deal from such experiences. These two processes—formal and informal education—if, they work in parallel, will lead to a better family and society as well as better professional life for the student.

The Importance of Home in Imparting Informal Education

Schools or colleges are centres of formal education, while homes are the centres for informal education. Both are equally important. The former is essential in terms of securing jobs, the latter for building a better society.

Families sometimes ignore their responsibility of imparting informal education to its members. Failure to do this, will make the society pay a heavy price. It is important that every member is duty-conscious, if we are to build a better society. The best source for this is the home, a basic unit of society.

This verse in the Quran underlines the importance of home education: ‘Bear in mind all that is recited in your homes of the revelations of God and of wisdom. God is all pervading and all aware.’ (33: 34)


Just as formal education aims to impart quality education,
the focus of informal education is to develop quality character in people.


It tells us what should be the course of home schooling. Senior members of the house have to play the role of educators and ensure that there is an open environment for discussion at home. All issues should be discussed in an informal atmosphere. Such discussion will not have any particular pre-designed agenda, but revolve around the words of God, the wisdom of life, and evaluate everything on merit. Members must evolve into good advisers as well as good listeners.

Ideally, family members must register their experiences during the day and share these experiences with others at the end of the day. This makes every home a centre of informal education, resulting in a better society and a better nation. 

Opening closed doors

For every closed door, there is always another which is open—but only
to those who have the eyes to see it and the courage to march through it.