Primary education
By 2011 the philosophy had changed, the elementary understanding of other subjects had been dropped in favour of "to establish a solid foundation for learning".
[6] In agrarian cultures, agriculture, husbandry, bartering, and building skills can be passed on from adults to children or master to apprentice.
In Sparta until twelve, it would be at a military academy building up physical fitness and combat skills, but also reading, writing and arithmetic[8]: 25 while in Athens the emphasis would be on understanding the laws of the polis, reading, writing, arithmetic and music with gymnastics and athletics,[8]: 29, 30 and learning the moral stories of Homer.
In Rome the primary school was called the ludus; the curriculum developed over the centuries featuring the learning of both Latin and Greek.
[8]: 70 The trivium (grammar, rhetoric and logic) and quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music) were legacies of the Roman curriculum.
[8]: 88 As the Roman influence waned, the great cathedral schools were established to provide a source of choristers and clergy.
The Council of Rome in 853 specified that each parish should provide elementary education: religious ritual but also reading and writing Latin.
Alcuin (735–804) developed teaching material that was based on the catechetical method- repeating and memorizing questions and answers, although often understanding the information was not important.
Girls entered at the age of eight and were taught Latin grammar, religious doctrine, and music, and the women's arts of spinning, weaving, tapestry, painting, and embroidery.
Elementary education was mainly to teach sufficient Latin for the trivium and the quadrivium that formed the basis of the secondary curriculum.
These were set up to enable children to receive manual training and elementary instruction, and provided a restricted curriculum with the emphasis on reading, writing and arithmetic (the three Rs).
The schools operated on a monitorial system, whereby one teacher supervised a large class with the assistance of a team of monitors, who were quite often older pupils.
[19] Lev Vygotsky's theory[20] is based on social learning, where a more knowledgeable other (MKO) helps a child progress within their zone of proximal development (ZPD).
[24] Because the United Nations specifically focused on Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, as they are both home to the vast majority of children out of school, they hypothesized that they might not have been able to reach their goal by 2015.
According to the September 2010 fact sheet, this was because there were still about 69 million school-age children who were not in school with almost half of the demographic in sub-Saharan Africa and more than a quarter in Southern Asia.
[25] In order to achieve the goal by 2015, the United Nations estimated that all children at the official entry age for primary school would have had to have been attending classes by 2009.
Not only was it important for children to be enrolled in education, but countries would have to ensure that there were a sufficient number of teachers and classrooms to meet the demand.
Although enrollment in the sub-Saharan area of Africa continues to be the lowest region worldwide, by 2010, "it still increased by 18 percentage points—from 58 percent to 76 percent—between 1999 and 2008."
[26] Major advances had been made even in the poorest countries, like the abolition of primary school fees in Burundi where there was an increase in primary-school enrollment, which reached 99 percent as of 2008.
Moreover, other regions in Latin America such as Guatemala and Nicaragua, and Zambia in Southern Africa "broke through the 90 percent towards greater access to primary education.
"[26] Schools play an important role in children's socialization and in developing their appreciation of sharing, fairness, mutual respect and cooperation.
Schools form the foundational values and competencies that are the building blocks towards the understanding of concepts such as justice, democracy and human rights.
Teachers are often on the front line of this work and, along with families, play a formative role in shaping children's attitudes and behaviours.
It aims to empower learners to engage and assume active roles, both locally and globally, as proactive contributors to a more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure, and sustainable world.
