Tr.

Kabali Farouk
Impacts and implications of Plato's philosophy to today's education.
Plato was known for having ideas of a perfect state and he believed education was one of the
keys to eradict the evil so that to achieve such a state .This is because if people were educated, the
need for establishing laws was unnecessary but if they were uneducated then the laws made would
even be useless.
Such a philosophy has the following impacts and implications to today's education as follows:
The organization of Plato's education curriculum through preschool, elementary,military
training and higher education impacts on the way learning is taken in Uganda today; parents
before school encourage their children to like learning by buying charts of alphabets and
numerals; our primary one to senior four syllabus is taken as elementary which every child has to
have then after given chase to join other higher institutions of learning, vocational studies or
joining the military.
Plato advocated for education for all as he said, "Every member of society, though they will
have specific roles in society later on in life must all have equal education at the start of their
training (both boys and girls)".This has impacted most countries including Uganda to give this
chance to all its citizens for instance putting up Universal primary and secondary education
programs also government sponsorship at university level.
The highest goal of education according to Plato is the knowledge of good, to nurture a man to
a better human being, its not merely an awareness of particular benefits and pleasures. This is in
line with the one of the goals of Uganda's education system which is to bring up
responsible,patriotic and integrative citizens.
For Plato ,education was more than just memorizing facts while sitting in a class room from
youth to maturity. Instead education is a lifelong process and so even adults could be trained and
educated therefore its an implication that as teachers we have to acknowledge that learning does
not end and so we must be open and flexible for any learning after even the first degree and one
wills not to upgrade to higher levels.
He highlighted a number of teaching methods including role play,story telling ,games,music,
Socratic method (dialect) in which a teacher uses questions to get students think about what he/she
alraedy knows and to realise what they don't know. (These question-answer session stimulates the
brain,engages the learner and can bring new ideas to life),however both didactic and dialect
methods are necessary for teaching as sometimes telling the students what they need to know I'd
the only wat to impart information though dialect method is essential for engaging students in
interactive learning.
Plato also highlighted that both sexes have equal strength and capability to learn,thus as
teachers we have to give equal chances and tasks for both boys and girls so that we achieve the
desired goals.
Plato emphasized that education should be completely under the control of state which is meant
to provide teachers,building classrooms, control the curriculum and methods of teaching,payment
for instuctors, officials and supretendants in charge of education, both cultural and physical.This is
very evident for our nation as its the government under the ministry of education and sports to do
all these activities for example rescently the change of O' level curriculum ,methods of
teaching(integration of ICT, use of locally available resources etc).
For Plato ,those with little education were sent to productive classes.Higher education was
intended for soldiers and governing classes and the labour class has no need for such an
education.The implication is that in our society still those who excel less in education resort to
very energetic employments of low class such as traders,market vendors ,blockers,taxi,
mechanical work etc therefore education affects much our employments .A clear example on this
is the department of security in Uganda;those who stop at S.4 go into LDUs,S.6 can go to police
and the army requires minimum qualification of undergraduate.
Plato suggested same kind of education to an entire class of people (uniform curriculum).This
leads to lack of variety and static monotony within the society therefore we should administer a
uniform curriculum so as to bring about citizens of equal format and enable graduates at a given
level have equal chances to employment opportunities.
Plato showed neglegance of literary education(literature and arts) and stressed the importance
of mathematics which is upto today given high priority to the extent that its a core at any level be
it nursery primary and O'level(any change in subjects taught doesnot affect mathematics.
Some people get the impression that Plato's insistence on philosophy is exaggerated and it
could lead to an increase in the number of contemplative individuals at the expense of more
practical members, therefore as teachers we have to appreciate all forms of education as that is
arts,sciences literature, enterprenurship etc in order to form and allround citizen as the world is
very dynamic.