Page 12 - 和富慈善基金李宗德小學 知德集

Principal's Writing Corner

The Goal of Education:

Character Building of Students

“Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.”
― Martin Luther King, Jr.

Recently, there is a lot of discussion within the education communities of
Hong Kong on whether or not character building should be one of the major
concerns that a school should focus on. Early before this, there has been a lot
of critiques in the global education platform that world academics appeared to
have challenged the topic of “What is the real goal of education?”.

Below are some of the examples that some scholars wrote:
“Education is not only about learning subjects such as Math, English,
and Science. A more comprehensive definition of education addresses the
emotions, personality, and character as well... ” (Spallino, 2017)
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“Education is not just a process of transferring knowledge and developing
skills. More importantly, it is meant to develop character… character
encompasses the qualities of self-worth, integrity, humility, truthfulness,
thoughtfulness, discipline, sharing, passion and determination in pursuit of a
quest. ” (Nasuruddin, 2018)
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“What is the goal of education? There is no denying that the majority views
education as a tool to enable children or students in developing the skills,
knowledge and the expertise to become responsible and contributing members
of the society in which they live… However… without good characters
ingrained in a person, education becomes a bane, a tool for exploiting fellow
human beings. The benefits of education which is to liberate the humans from
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their miseries… ” (Hansdah, 2017)

The development of character is a process that requires the efforts of the
developing individual and the society and the school. It is an obligation we
as educators all share, not least the parents. We believe that a society can
determine to enable its members to live well will treat character education as
something to which every child has a right and will benefit. Therefore, schools
should consider questions about the kinds of persons their students will
become, how the development of good character contributes to a flourishing
life, and how to balance various virtues and values in this process. If WFJLPS
is asked to write her own vision, mission and values statements on how
character building elements can be included, I would like to suggest the

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