Group work

Summary & Argumentative Essay Presentation

ENG 105 | SECTION 29

SUBMITTED BY-
Group-D

Name Of The Students Student ID

Syeda Nusaibah Abedin 1931854030

Monayam Shariar Nabil 2012140030
Shehtab Ehsan Ahmed 2012401030
Maliha Mahfuz 2014060030
Rabeya Bashri Ruma 2021051630
Isteak Ahmed 2021421630
Ifaez Amin Chowdhury 2022034630
Md. Thasin Hassan Shifat 2031495630

Submitted to:

Raihana Tasnim

Department of
English and Modern Language, North South University

Submission Date- 27/04/2021

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 Summary
Liqing Tao, Margaret Berci and Wayne HE suggest that Commercialization of education
has been a recent trend in China, leading to the qualifications of attending both private and
public educational institutions. The level of education has changed for instance better
student-teacher relationships, attitude towards knowledge, flexible relationships between
stakeholders etc. Availability of higher education may not mean accessibility for many
youngsters as they may not be able to afford this type of education. Commercialization
tends to occur at two different aspects: the administrative level with objectives to run the
institute efficiently and the instructional level with policies to make the process less
expensive and making learning/teaching a priority. China plans to affect generations after
generations with its education from both an immediate and distal point of view. China’s
education has always been perceived as utilitarian. In the past, generations of Chinese
students had to participate in a number of practices in order to compete for the officialdom
through the examination. The objective was to utilize education for an improved and
powerful China, although the examination was abolished in 1905. The authors state that
commercialization is a recent occurrence as strategies used for earning higher profits were
distrusted back in the day.

    

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 Argumentative Essay

Commercialization of education

The term education refers to the process of receiving systematic instruction for different
subjects that are involved in human lives in a certain discipline, especially at school,
college, or university. Education is a privilege that offers us to be enlightened as a better
human being, and also provides with the skill sets required for employment and ensures
stability in life through the establishment. However, commercialization of education
nowadays refers to pursuing education for financial gain or selling education as a product
instead of seeing it as an abstract element for human enlightenment. But there was a time
when people pursued education for enlightenment, knowledge, and excellence mostly and
now people study only for a successful career. Moreover, College and university level
education has become so expensive that it ultimately targets people with a good financial
state and excludes the poor ones. Therefore, we can say that education is now too
commercialized, since education has become more of a money-making scheme and elusive
to the poor, although commercialization of education in a quantitative manner promotes the
importance of education. 

The rising population and the booming of capitalism worldwide have not only stimulated
fierce competition in the job market, but also resulted in education being extremely money-
oriented. These days, people interpret education as a means to a financial end; a safe
approach to ensuring profitable employment. Students nowadays are more concerned about
acquiring a degree rather than learning to be a better human being or gain in-depth
knowledge. Institutes benefit from this by money-making schemes like compelling students
for private tuitions and attract multinational companies to get sponsorships. However,
“Demands are being made for individuals to enter the education profession with improved
techniques and skills, rather than improved and innovative pedagogy based upon praxis and
reflection.” (Schrum, 2002, p.2). This illustrates how vocational education holds much
more value compared to conventional education methods in the present world. Hence,
commercialization of education might motivate students to work harder towards improving
their skills while pursuing a profitable career.

A prominent piece of evidence on how education is commercialized would be how it

targets only the rich people and excludes the poor. College/University fees have become so
expensive that parents often start saving for them while their children are still in middle
school. But how many people in our society can bear such expenses? When the educational
institutions hanker after money like this, students with a low-income family background
drop out and thus talents get killed. Here, we can relate the situation with the basic nature of
capitalism, which encompasses commercializing everything aggressively for making money
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at any cost. Education, a fundamental right for all, should not be commercialized as a posh
product that can be afforded by the rich people only.  Before the 1980s, Education was not
as expensive as it is now and that is why people like Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar would
have to study under lamp posts and yet he became a great educator. However, highly
qualified people are being attracted to higher salaries as the privatization of educational
institutions is taking place. “Utilitarianism is not equal to commercialization, though
commercialization highlights strong utilitarian objectives” (Tao et al., n.d., para.10). Thus
as a rationing device, the price of education becomes high, because it is not possible to
make it affordable to everyone even though it can be made cheaper and affordable to more
people. 

On the contrary to the above arguments, quantitative commercialization of education can

be a solution and would promote the importance of education. It tends to attract more
eligible people for admission. Firstly, commercialization of higher education generally
results in state-of-the-art facilities for all students as money is no longer a constraint in their
cases. As these people graduate, they eventually work for the country as many private
colleges have a variety of job-oriented classes, degrees, diplomas, qualification courses, and
so on. This further helps in boosting economic growth as these jobs help to bring in revenue
and generally lead to improved infrastructure- for instance, because of good architects or
engineers and also reduces the rate of unemployment in a country. This also contributes to
the growth of Human Resources. Moreover, this helps in the development of a country as
well since the economy gravitates towards a better position. The world is moving towards
being almost entirely digital now so a higher number of highly educated students is
obligatory given the current situation.

Lastly, we can deduce from the above argument that commercialization of education has
reached an extreme extent through its aggressive money-oriented goals and targeting the
rich people, whereas education, as a fundamental right, should be accessible to the people
of all financial, religious, and cultural backgrounds. The actual goals of education fail with
commercialization since there is no point in pursuing education if it cannot make one a
better human being. Therefore, we can commercialize education to promote the importance
of education, and also focus on actualization simultaneously like other countries.

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 References

Schrum, L. (2016). Education and commercialization: Raising awareness and making wise
Decisions. Cite Journal, Retrieved from https://citejournal.org/volume-2/issue-2-
02/social-studies/education-and-commercialization-raising-awareness-and-making-
wise-decisions/

Tao, L., Berci, M., & HE, W. (n.d.). The commercialization of education. The New york
Times, Retrieved from
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/college/coll-china-education-
005.html

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