Why does society consider education such an important quest? Should there be a purpose for education or should education simply be an intrinsic pursuit (Marples, 2010), where individuals just want to learn and become more knowledgeable. Education should be accessible for all young people to obtain skills required to become meaningful members of society, whether it is simply to acquire knowledge or to acquire more purposeful skills for a meaningful profession. How that occurs is determined by stakeholders commissioned to realise the aims for education devised by governments, who ultimately decide what is best for society. Education can be applied to any number of programmes that teach and encourage learning (Hand, 2010). The argument put forward in this paper will outline three views of education that support different educational aims; liberal, vocational and resolved views. These views will be explored before one view will be discussed in relation to the aims of education within the Australian context, explaining ethical implications for teachers and how the view affects student learning.
Educational philosopher Richard Peters believed that educations value was purely intrinsic (Marples, 2010), that individuals pursued education for knowledge’s sake alone. Working with Hirst; Peters (as cited in Marples, 2010) proposed a liberal view to education that saw knowledge and understanding being valuable for its own sake (O’Boyle, 1983, Marples, 2010). This view was believed to develop intellect, improving an individual’s capacity to think and understand (Pring, 2005). Within this view knowledge is categorised according to distinctive ideas and concepts that separate one form of knowledge from another (Marples, 2010). Proponents of a liberal view believed the curriculum should consist of academic subjects and disciplines (Hand, 2010) that initiate inquiry