What Is Quality Education?

Quality Education is a term used to describe a high-quality combination of curriculum, assessments, and training that produces graduates capable of being socially effective and economically productive. Parents can infer education quality from the learning resources provided by a school.

But education quality isn't just about the resources and the curriculum but also about the teachers' ability to educate students alongside the school culture's ability to produce well-rounded individuals.

Many parents enroll their kids in schools based on the syllabus alone and are frustrated to learn that their wards need tuition because of the poor instruction quality.

To judge a school's education quality, you need to assess the quality of the following components:

The curriculum

If the school's curriculum is well-known, then its education can open doors for high-quality higher education. Well-rounded subject matter points toward a quality curriculum.

The learning resources

Aside from the required textbooks, what else is there for your ward to learn from? Classroom handouts, links to helpful resources, etc., are indicators of high-quality learning resources.

The training quality

Training quality is best judged by how much your ward needs private tuition. Please note that many students require private tuition because of a lack of one-on-one interaction and because of the limits of traditional schooling. Still, every student in a quality classroom should be able to get passing marks, at least with zero post-school tuition.

The school's values

The values of a school are not judged by what's proclaimed on its website. They are seen in how it transforms your ward. For instance, if your child obsesses over grades alone, then the school doesn't value the non-academic aspects of quality education.

The school's culture

School culture is a result of whom the school targets in its marketing. For instance, 21K School focuses on open-minded parents who want to equip their children with an education that acknowledges the changing world and allows them to capitalize on its opportunities. Who the school attracts and who it lets in produces the social fabric of your child's life. Eliminating negative peer pressure and bad influences requires enrolling one's ward in a school with a quality culture.

Selecting for excellence in each one of those pillars can ensure quality education for your child. 21K School is an online education provider with a high-quality set of curricula, teaching methodologies tailored for individual students, and a high student satisfaction track record. 21K School, therefore, is a great choice if you're okay with online learning.

If you want to send your ward to a physical school, though, you'll need to personally assess its curriculum and learning materials. It can be tough for parents to judge a school's curriculum or its learning materials. UN's definition of Quality Education can provide more elaborate criteria to judge quality education.

United Nations On Quality Education

The UN's goal to provide inclusive and equitable quality education comes with an elaborate definition, which is mentioned below.

"[Quality education] must promote lifelong learning opportunities for all and support the acquisition of the knowledge and skills needed to exploit opportunities and to participate fully in society. It must also foster the development of ethical, social, and emotional competencies to empower individuals to live, work, and thrive in diverse and changing environments and to contribute to sustainable development."

One way to rephrase the UN's definition of quality education is that it equips students with the ability to continue learning throughout their life and makes them more personally, socially, and economically competent.

The UN also asserts that "obtaining a quality education is the foundation to improving people’s lives" and of "sustainable development." So, it can be inferred that for an individual, education's quality can be determined by its ability to improve their life in a sustainable fashion.

Boiling it down to a single sentence, we get the following definition:

Quality education is an education that can improve a student's life throughout their life.

This definition of quality education is quite helpful because of its relevance across the socio-economic spectrum. For someone living in poverty, a trade school enrollment could provide the quality education necessary to start earning a living wage.

But for someone with generational wealth, quality education would be far higher in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. He doesn't need an education that gets him a job. However, that doesn't mean that he can afford to go without schooling. Generationally wealthy individuals need an education that can help them understand responsible wealth management and can make them better-rounded humans.

Ultimately, the UN's goal regarding Quality Education is to bring it to children of different genders, races, and ethnic backgrounds all over the world. And if they all receive an education that improves their lives throughout their lives, they'll climb up the economic ladder.

The Targets Of Quality Education

Like the UN, different organizations have set different targets regarding quality education, but most aim toward the same direction. Almost every organization working towards providing Quality Education is trying to make it available to more people.

That's the general target of schools, NGOs, and even governments, regarding Quality Education. It should not be confused with the targets of quality education itself.

The primary target of quality education is improving the lives of students. This can be broken down into financial, social, emotional, philosophical, and psychological components.

Financial

The financial benefits of quality education are under constant scrutiny. Parents want the fee they pay to have an eventual return, while marketers want their respective schools to be viewed as beacons of financial progress.

Social

The social aspect of quality education should be under higher scrutiny than the financial one. The top 1% put a disproportional emphasis on who else goes to a particular school and not just what the school teaches. Friendships forged in school days can be consequential in positive as well as negative ways.

Emotional

Given that teachers have replaced a good portion of what used to be the mothers' time with their children, they have to accept their role as stand-in parents. Leaving this unfulfilled leads to an emotionally closed-off or disproportionately needy child.

Online schooling allows teachers to work with smaller groups giving enough attention to everyone. Regardless of the mode, education must elevate a student's emotional well-being. Young students' emotions must be understood and acknowledged.

Students should also be taught in a way that makes them emotionally mature and capable of self-regulation.

Philosophical

Aside from making your ward feel emotionally independent and mature, education should also equip him with a philosophical lens that makes him capable of leading a good life. Jaded teachers or pressurized school staff aren't capable of doing this. A school that fosters a positive culture is much better at helping students be philosophically generous.

From giving the benefit of the doubt to their peers to choosing kindness when it is easy to be indifferent, the little things that young students do when growing up can shape their philosophical outlook on life.

Psychological

A good philosophical view can help one be socially impactful, forgiving, and even somewhat fulfilled. But one's outlook is a product of one's brain. The right philosophy of life requires the right psychological state. Quality education takes a student's mental health into account.

Schools that dump too much homework on their students to impress parents disregard this component entirely. A psychologically taxed student can develop a burning aversion to education and can stop learning altogether after he has the bare-minimum education to get by. And that's antithetical to the UN's definition of Quality Education.

In the lower-income class as well as the lower middle class, the common attitude towards school is that getting a student into university is the best thing it can do. And the thought regarding universities is that the best thing they can do is get a job.

It is erroneously assumed that the schools with a higher ability to funnel students into university provide Quality Education. It is easy to discount the need for other aspects for financially-strapped households.

But now that online schools have made well-rounded Quality Education accessible, every parent should think of the importance of Quality Education instead of Grade-driven education.

What Is The Importance Of Quality Education?

Quality education can help students become thrive across all aspects of their lives, including financial, social, and emotional ones. Students who get quality education early on continue to grow as individuals even after they graduate.

On the other hand, students who get grade-driven education learn to put mark sheets on a pedestal and focus entirely on KPIs and Certificates of appreciation. This can lead to work-life balance problems, a lack of social life, and fulfillment problems post-mid-life.

Grade-driven education stops paying dividends past middle management, which can be frustrating for students who have grown up to value their careers only.

Understanding the economic reality of life is one thing. But raising a child who believes it to be the only goal is another. Quality Education is important because it produces graduates who are economically productive but also socially capable. These are the people who make an impact on others, live full lives, and make time for their spouses, children, and parents.

Benefits Of Quality Education

When someone gets Quality Education, their family and society at large are better off. More importantly, the individual getting educated is also better off. Here are the benefits of high-quality education to an individual.

Better income-
earning opportunities

With Quality Education, an individual is better equipped to provide value to the market and make more money.

Better social life
and standing

Quality education comes with a wealth of socializing opportunities and equips one with values that contribute to a rich social life.

Improved
cognitive skills

 According to a US Study,  quality education improves cognition. Those who get better education don't just know better. They can also think better.

Critical thinking
capability

High-quality education teaches students to understand new concepts and even question them. This fosters critical thinking, which helps them make better decisions.

Creative thinking
and expression

Well-rounded education fosters creativity, which is crucial to self-esteem and actualization. Papers as far back as the 70s have proven that creativity and self-actualization have a positive correlation.

Emotional
intelligence

Students who get quality education are taught conflict resolution, problem-solving, and communication, all of which form the bedrock for emotional intelligence.

Interest in
learning

The world keeps changing, and those who learn continuously thrive with change. Recipients of quality education love to learn and continue the pursuit of knowledge even later in life.

Better income-
earning opportunities

Equipped with a well-rounded education and care, students who go to Quality Education schools are in a better position to go beyond economic worries and focus on fulfilling their potential. And when individuals fulfill their potential, people around them benefit.

Positive Effects Of Quality Education

The admirable effects of quality education go beyond the learner's own life and ripple out into society at large.

Economic Growth

The financial success aspect of individual growth manifests itself as a generally wealth-flush economy. That's why the countries that have managed to produce the best quality standards for education are among the highest GDP nations.

Social Cohesion

The difference between the economic prosperity of countries where grade-centric Education is preferred over holistic education is that the former are financially rich while the latter is financially and socially wealthy. It is with Quality Education alone that a compassionate generation can be raised.

Sustainable Development

Sustainability is a requirement of almost every system in existence. Economic models so far have seemed to be financially sustainable for the rich and economically uncertain for lower-income households. Moreover, they have proven to be uniformly unsustainable for the planet. Quality education instills in individuals the importance of environmental sustainability. It also equips them with the financial know-how to turn their skills into income, which leads to more financial stability. The economic sustainability that comes from one generation getting quality education can continue across multiple generations, provided that families emphasize education's importance.

Generational emphasis on social change

 Fortune Magazine has found that 70% of wealthy families lose their wealth within one generation. In the same analysis, 90% of the generational wealth is lost across two generations. Quality education can prevent frivolous loss by ensuring that each subsequent generation is equipped with the right financial and social lenses to retain their wealth and use it more responsibly.

The Science Behind Quality Education

Quality education's effects on individuals' prosperity and mental health, alongside its importance for social change and familial cohesion, are well documented. Here are the top 5 studies you should be aware of.

Poor Quality Education is a Poverty Trap

Nic Spaull's Stellenbosch University research paper finds that poor education ensures low income, which keeps people from providing quality education to their children. This cycle of poverty can start for any family at any point if quality education is stripped from a generation. Even affluent families can spend irresponsibly enough to lose it all.

Quality Education is a pillar of sustainable development

In Issues And Trends In Education For Sustainable Development's fourth chapter, the authors make a compelling case that Quality Education can stabilize economies and alleviate enough people out of poverty to lay the bedrock of sustainable development.

Quality Education is a great investment

Dana Mitra's Pennsylvania State University paper on The Social and Economic Benefits of Public Education concludes that making Quality Education accessible to the public can prove to be the most financially, socially, and culturally rewarding investment for any state.

Quality Education is internationally relevant

A paper on the Contributions of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) to Quality Education finds that UNESCO's ESD initiative is actually improving education quality internationally. It also finds that participants from most countries are already availing of the positive effects of Quality

Quality Education is beyond curricula

In No Child Left Behind: Costs and Benefits, the author finds that while Quality Education can deliver many desirable outcomes, there isn't enough of it to go around. His area of focus is the American Education system. In non-American countries, the Western curriculum might be conflated with quality education. But this paper goes on to prove that education quality is beyond the American or even the British curriculum. It is about instruction quality, classroom structure, and a balance of academic and non-academic aspects.

Challenges Of Quality Education

Most of the challenges regarding Quality Education come from an improper assumption that education is best assessed by the syllabus. In fact, Education is best assessed by the environment and the quality of education.

That's why many parents are moving to school their children online for better teacher-to-student ratio and more environmental control. Still, ensuring quality remains a challenge in the education system at large. Here are the key obstacles in the way of Quality Education.

The Financial Obligations Of Schools

Schools are businesses that are supposed to turn a profit. This pressure can lead them to charge fees that parents cannot afford. As a result, families that need quality education to get out of poverty end up getting priced out of Quality education.

Discriminatory Enrollment Practices

Even families that can cough up the high costs of high-quality schools can be kept out through vague enrollment criteria. Because schools don't have to be open and objective about their enrollment criteria, they can keep students of certain backgrounds out.

Geographical Access

The 9 of the top 10 universities in the world are located in the US. Similar clustering occurs in schools as well, with most that provide Quality Education being present in the same geographic area. This leaves out many states, towns, and rural areas, where students have to resort to the closest schools instead of the best ones.

One-Size-Fits-All Model

Because universities emphasize grades and scores in board exams, many schools focus entirely on churning out batches of high-grade earners. This model suppresses the creative tendencies as well as the potential of students who aren't very good at memorizing.

Lack Of Understanding Of Quality

Many parents don't know what quality education is. Some believe that a foreign syllabus indicates quality, while others believe that giving more homework is a sign of academic superiority. This creates a demand for schools that look like they provide quality education but don't actually deliver.

Online Schools are combatting the geographic and enrollment discrimination challenges. But even when picking an online school, a parent must understand the markers of a quality education-providing institution.

Features Of Good Quality Education

Whether you plan to enroll your child in a physical school or in an online one, you must look for five indicators of good quality. Do not enroll your ward in an institution that doesn't offer or have all of the following:

Different Teaching Methods

An unorthodox teaching method is a key marker of quality in education. Most often, quality institutions stand out by an unconventional teacher-to-student ratio. If a classroom is more interactive than average, the education provided there is of better quality.

Less But Meaningful Homework

When a school provides homework that students can finish by themselves, it displays the value of its instruction as well as the excellence of its homework design.

A Holistic Syllabus

If the syllabus is too market-inclined, and the curriculum excludes the arts and literature, then the school is too set in the conventional education system. Quality schools pay attention to students' mental and physical needs and offer subjects that allow students to sample a broader range of subjects.

Student-Oriented Approach

The more a school is on your ward's side, the better your child will learn. From teaching methods to the overall environment, quality education is student-oriented. It might be financially convenient to have one teacher teach a class of 35 students. But it is far more convenient for a child to learn in a small group.

Results That Matter

Finally, you can tell how good a school is at delivering quality education by asking for results. Schools that provide top-tier education are very forthcoming with their results and testimonials. They speak of students who are happier and are achieving more. But schools that excel at conventional education only speak of grades and enrollment rates.

What Can Schools Do To Improve The
Quality Of Education?

Parents don't always have to transfer their children because of quality problems in a specific institution's curriculum or instruction quality. Every school can offer quality education, given appropriate direction and resources. Here are a few things that schools can do to offer Quality Education.

Train Their Teachers

Teacher training is the most impactful way to increase the quality of an institution. Since instruction quality is crucial for top-tier education, you can bump up any school's level by helping teachers do better.

Reduce Class Size

Aside from encouraging more interactive teaching methods, schools can also reduce the number of students per class for a more interactive environment. It is a tough financial decision, but it is manageable. Many online schools already have small classrooms. Given that physical schools are more cash-flush, they can make the same choice as well.

Rethink Their Curriculum

While conventional schools are resistant to reducing their classroom size, they are even more hesitant to rethink their curricula. The dictum that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" doesn't work in quality education because education must be better than "not broken." It should be the best it can be, for which a school has to redesign its curriculum.

Change Assessment Methods

The classroom tests, mid-terms, and final examinations have become the standard for most schools. But quality schools have vivas, quizzes, and essay submissions as additional assessment tools that track a student's progress.

Involve The Parents

Good schools don't just track their students' progress; they community-build with the parents. By involving parents in their wards' academic progress, schools can ensure that quality education continues at home after it is wrapped up in school.

Features Of Good Schools

Schools that overcome the obstacles to quality education can be identified quite easily because they stand out from the rest. If you want to be sure that the school you're planning to enroll your child in is indeed a quality institution, you should use the following as your checklist.

The attitude and accessibility of staff and management

Quality schools have friendly staff and accessible management. You should be able to meet more than the enrollment manager on your first visit to a quality school.

Student-centric approach

From the curriculum to the way learning materials are designed, everything about a quality school is student-centered.

Regular teacher training

Schools that offer quality education don't limit it to students only. Even teachers get a fair share of education. From the latest teaching methods to technological support, teachers in quality classrooms are empowered to deliver their best.

An empowered student activities department

Aside from empowering teachings, quality schools also enable their student activities staff to arrange great athletic, artistic, and general extracurricular events.

Tangible results, advertised transparently

The final marker of a quality school is what it advertises. A grade-obsessed school might center its messaging around the high-scoring percentage of its student body. An elitist school might market how exclusive it is. But a good school tracks and markets what matters. Quality schools' messaging is around student engagement and parents' satisfaction.

How 21k School Provides Quality Education To All?

21K School is a global online school that provides flexible and affordable education to all. By rendering education geographically independent, 21K School brings knowledge to more people. Not only does it overcome the cost and location barriers to quality education, but it also makes learning easier for neurodivergent students.

21K School is a great option for quality education because of the following:

Adaptive learning methodology

21K School's education methodology is centered around individual students' needs. It ensures that no student is left behind.

Multiple curricula

Among 21K School's curricula and certifications are Cambridge, O Levels, ICSE, CBSE, and CIE.

Updated education materials

Even when conventional syllabus fails to account for shifts in technology and markets, 21K School adjusts its learning resources to make sure that no student graduates with outdated information.

Regular teacher training

21K School conducts regular teacher training to ensure that quality education is delivered remotely to students with different learning paces and styles.

A collaborative approach to education

The school collaborates with parents and involves them in their children's progress. Parents who might otherwise feel helpless in their wards' education feel empowered enrolling their children in 21K School.

FAQ

Have questions? Here we are to help

Quality education means well-rounded education that produces emotionally intelligent and economically capable individuals. It is a pillar of sustainable development and can be crucial for a country's progress. Since education comprises curriculum, instruction, and assessment, quality education entails better curriculum, effective instruction, and reliable assessment. The more variation there is in the education materials, teaching methods, and assessments, the more likely an institution is to have a "better than average" education quality. Whenever the term Quality education is brought up in the context of the UN's sustainable development goals, it implies making high-quality education accessible to more people with the intention that it will raise their awareness, life satisfaction, and self-reliance.

You can achieve quality education by making it more affordable and widely available. A country's quality education score can increase significantly if teacher training and curriculum updates are incorporated into its public education system. Achieving quality education goals as a country requires revamping the education quality while achieving it as a private organization entails revamping the cost and distribution structure of education. 21K School makes private school education more easily accessible and affordable.

Quality education is important because poor quality education can become a poverty trap. People without proper education cannot thrive, and people who cannot thrive cannot afford to send their children to schools that provide quality education. To break the cycle of poverty, there should be easier entry to quality education, or there should be easier entry to high-income jobs. The latter is tough, given the ground realities of capitalism. However, it is possible to make quality education more affordable via online channels.

Everyone has a stake in quality education, so everyone, including the government, private school management, teachers, and parents, should play their respective roles. The government must improve the quality of public education, while private schools should make their services more affordable. Teachers should be more collaborative and must train regularly, while parents should pick the right schools and pay attention to their wards' progress. If everyone does their part towards the UN's goal regarding quality education, the world can get rid of hunger and poverty altogether.

Teachers play the most important role in delivering quality education. Without the right teachers, quality education materials fail to fulfill their purpose. Quality schools support their teachers by offering them regular training sessions as well as resources. When schools empower their teaching staff, students get the consequent, positive impact. Some of the decisions that can support teachers in providing quality education include:
  • Training - To provide quality education, teachers must be trained regularly. With regular training, they have better strategies to educate and inform their students and command their classrooms.  
  • Quality learning materials - A teacher's research burden increases if the learning resources he has are of poor quality. With good teaching materials, the instructor can focus entirely on communicating the lesson.  
  • A humane schedule - Most teachers are overworked and forced to work in unsustainably large classrooms. A humane schedule and less workload can make teachers more efficient.  
  • Emotional support - Many schools have counselors for students. But teachers also need emotional support and guidance. An on-campus counselor for educators can improve their ability to deliver quality education.  
  • Better compensation - Finally, a teacher who isn't worried about paying the rent is able to teach better than one who is stretching his paycheck. Better compensated teachers do better, and teachers who do better get compensated better. This cycle can be started on the teacher's end.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), Teach For All, and the KIPP network of schools are some examples of successful initiatives to improve the quality of education in different parts of the world.
  • OLPC - The One Laptop Per Child initiative is spearheaded by an American organization that offers laptops alongside software and learning resources to children in less developed countries. Its distribution includes Rwanda, Nepal, and Nigeria.  
  • Teach for All - Teach for All is a network of multiple education providers that strive to make quality education globally accessible via local funding and volunteering.  
  • The KIPP network of schools - KIPP stands for Knowledge Is Power Program. The KIPP schools are public charter schools that are entirely tuition-free. The network tackles the cost challenges that keep quality education from being accessible to all.

Instruction, Assessment, and Curriculum are the three pillars of education. While most people place disproportional emphasis on the curriculum, instruction quality remains the most important pillar of education. To provide quality education, an institution must improve its curriculum, assessment, and instruction. Curricula like the British Curriculum or the American one are better suited for global university enrollment, while local ones have more of an intra-country focus. Schools can provide quality education with any of the globally recognized curricula by changing their teaching methods. There's almost a consensus regarding the power of adaptive learning. If the instruction methodology of most schools were to shift to student-oriented teaching, the current curriculum would become more effective at producing well-rounded individuals. The pitfalls of the current standardized assessments and the subsequent emphasis on memory-driven learning are keeping most schools from achieving their education quality goals.

The main goal of quality education is to empower students to be economically and socially more productive and fulfilled. It is supposed to be an equalizing force that ultimately lifts all tides in the global socio-economic spectrum. However, there are several obstacles that keep quality education from becoming equally accessible. Firstly, high-quality instruction costs money, and quality schools charge high fees for their services. This prices out most low-income households. Next, there is the challenge of the job market, which demands certain types of labor more than others. When schools have to justify their high fees, they position themselves as institutions as virtual guarantors of high-income careers. And that's the bedrock of one-size-fits-all education, which is neglectful of different interests, learning styles, and social welfare. Cookie-cutter education cannot be quality education as it fails to account for neurodivergent, financially strapped, and geographically disadvantaged students.

Quality Education refers to education that makes one capable of living a financially and socially successful life. It is sustainable and instills in an individual a life-long interest in learning. The benefits of good education go beyond the individual and ripple out into society, leading to progress, prosperity, and familial cohesion. That's why the UN is highly interested in making it as accessible and equitable as possible.