Education

Enhancing an individual’s development throughout their life.

A lifelong process which enables the continuous development of a person's capabilities as an individual and as a member of society. (Source: Council of Europe, Doc 8595 Non-formal education, accessed 30th September 2025)

Education provides incremental and transformative development for an individual helping to support personal goals, social engagement and employment-vocational requirements.

Education may be practiced as:
• formal education, which is a structured system, typically progressing from primary school through to college and university.
• informal education, which is gained from daily interactions such as reading or watching news or conversing with others.
• non-formal education, which is unstructured activity external to the formal education system.

In 2015, the then Schools Minister, Nick Gibbs, of the UK Conservative Government, gave a speech on The purpose of education at the Education Reform Summit, in which he identified three key purposes as being:

• Economy: ensuring people have the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in a demanding economy
• Culture: providing an intrinsic value as the hallmark of a civilised society and the foundation of our culture.
• Preparing for adult life: ensuring people have the character and sense of moral purpose to succeed.This third feature may also have been better termed 'Preparing for and progressing within and through adult life'. (The purpose of education, accessed 30th September 2025)