The Pursuit of Education 追求受教育

What do people pursue?

The Chinese is one of the communities willingly and sacrificially helping their children to pursue education. They believe education is the key for success.

In the well developed nations such as USA, UK, Australia etc, we can come across the Chinese, highly professionals, who have migrated from less developed nations. Having parents who saved and paid for their education, they have obtained well respected careers. Beside that, whether the migrants or the locals, education has made a difference in the life of many of them. Indeed, education is a way for attaining wealth and high standard of living.

Nevertheless, the pursuit of education should not be for the purpose of getting higher income or higher standard of living only. Instead, there should be a higher purpose for the pursuit of education than just seeking for higher materialistic living. Therefore, those who are helping their children to be educated or they themselves are in the pursuit of education should consider the purpose of their current pursuit.

To some people, education is a means for attaining knowledge to live a more meaningful life. Nevertheless, if the education system of a society is money-oriented, it is doubtful that such educational pursuit can enable people to living a more meaningful life. As a matter of fact, many institutions of higher learning are commercialised and expensive. Institutions should not advocate too much on career development leading to better income and their programs also should not be structured for such objective.

Therefore, if the pursuit of education is meant for something greater than money, the educators must first evaluate their educational system and its viability for a more decent purpose of education.

人会追求什么呢？

中国人或华人群体会甘心付出以使到子女能够受教育，因为他们认为受教育是成功之道。

我们可以在美国，英国，澳洲等发达国家遇到从發展中国家迁移过来的專业人士。身为父母曾为自己兒女的教育付出高昂代价，從而新一代获得了倍受尊重的事业。除此之外，无论是作为移民或者当地人，教育的确对许多人的生活产生了影响。如今，教育已经是获得财富和提高生活水平的一种方式。

然而，受教育不应仅仅是为了要获得更高的收入或生活水平。其实，投资教育应该有更崇高的目标，那些支持孩子接受高深教育，又或者自己本身也在追求教育的人应该考虑到受教育的目的。

对某些人来说，教育让人获取知识以便能够过一个更有意义的生活。如果一个社会的教育制度是以金钱为导向，那么如此的教育是否能使人们过上更有意义的生活是值得怀疑的。事实上，许多高等学府已经商业化。学府不应该太过倡导学业可以带来更好的收入，而课程设计也不应该是为了这样的目标。

如果追求教育的目的不是为了金钱而是持久的价值，教育者就必须自我评估所设定的教育制度及其实用性乃是为要达成更祟高的目的。