Education should facilitate pursuit of happiness

Now that we have all become acutely aware of the link between educational investment and economic growth, it is vital that we avoid a situation in which education policy is determined only by its relevance to market-based economic performance. So says Dr Eamon O'Shea, who lectures in economics at NUI, Galway.

Increasingly, he says, the needs of the economy are regarded as being superior to the needs of society. Our values and beliefs have become secondary to our abilities to accumulate and consume.

"By concentrating only on the market-based economic returns to education something valuable is being missed, since many things, which cannot be translated into money, are important for how people live," O'Shea argues. "The role of education in the accumulation of social capital is also important since relationships are broader than market interactions and include important elements such as common citizenship, trust and public service." O'Shea argues that the link between education and high earning power, is "a very narrow conception of human welfare". There is evidence within advanced societies that money does not buy happiness. We know this, "yet money remains the index by which progress is measured".

The education young people receive, O'Shea says, should facilitate the pursuit of human happiness - people should develop skills for self-realisation "beyond the self-gratification stage. It is not that people should be told what makes them happy, rather that people should be encouraged to think about what might make them happy, if only as an antidote to the message of the market, that only money matters." O'Shea believes that education must be personally, socially and culturally enabling. Employment apart, educational resources, he says, should also be used to enrich the personal and social lives of citizens.

"The education system is a powerful screening device for the needs of the economy but it may be less successful in meeting the needs of society." Schools, O'Shea observes, have an important role to play in the development of social capital by encouraging "social responsibility and civic engagement through teaching, through moral and ethical discourse and through practical example".