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Liberal Education and Professional
Education
A
Liberal education is a system or course
of education suitable for the cultivation of a
free
(Latin:
liber)
human
being.
It
is
based
on
the
medieval
concept
of
the
liberal
arts
or,
more
commonly
now,
the
liberalism
of
the
Age
of
Enlightenment.
It
has
been
described
as
philosophy of education that
empowers individuals with broad knowledge and
transferable skills,
and a stronger
sense of values, ethics, and civic engagement ...
Colleges
and
Universities.
Usually
global
and
pluralistic
in
scope,
it
can
include
a
general
education
curriculum
which
provides
broad
exposure
to
multiple
disciplines
and
learning
strategies in addition to in-depth
study in at least one academic area.
Liberal education was advocated in the
19th century by thinkers such as John Henry Newman
and F.D. Maurice. Sir Wilfred Griffin
Eady defined
Liberal Education as being
education for its
own sake and personal
enrichment, with the teaching of values. The
decline of liberal education is
often
attributed to mobilization during the Second World
War. The premium and emphasis placed
upon
mathematics,
science,
and
technical
training
caused
the
loss
of
its
prominent
position
in
higher
education
studies.
However,
it
became
central
to
much
undergraduate
education
in
the
United
States in the mid-20th century, being conspicuous
in the movement for 'general education'.
In
the
early
years
of
the
21st
century,
many
universities
and
liberal
arts
colleges
reviewed
their
curricula
to
include
a
liberal
education,
or
to
promote
broader
undergraduate
education
infused with its
spirit.
Definition of Liberal Education
The American
Association for
the Advancement of Science describes a liberal
education
in
this
way:
a
liberal
education
produces
persons
who
are
open-
minded
and
free
from
provincialism,
dogma,
preconception,
and
ideology;
conscious
of
their
opinions
and
judgments;
reflective
of
their
actions;
and
aware
of
their
place
in
the social
and
natural
worlds.
Liberally
educated
people
are
skeptical
of
their
own
traditions;
they
are
trained
to
think
for
themselves
rather than defer
to authority.
It
also
cultivates
citize
nship
through
off-campus
community
service,
internships,
research, and
study abroad. Some faculty see this movement
towards
pedagogically
powerful
than
traditional
classroom
teaching,
but
opponents
argue
that
the
education occurring within an academic
institution must be purely intellectual and
scholarly.
A
liberal education combines an education
in the classics, English literature, the
humanities,
and
moral
virtues. The
term
liberal
education
in
the
modern
sense should
not
be
confused with
liberal
arts
education; the
latter refers
to certain subjects
of study, while
the
former
is
a way
of
learning
itself and may be pursued through any subject.
Indeed, a liberal arts education does not
necessarily include a liberal
education, and a liberal arts program may even be
as specialized as a
vocational program.
V
ocational Education
V
ocational
education
(also
known
as
vocational
education
and
training
or
VET)
is
an
education that prepares people for
specific trades, crafts and careers at various
levels from a trade
to
a
craft
or
a
professional
position
in
engineering,
accountancy,
nursing,
medicine,
and
other
healing
arts,
architecture,
pharmacy
,
law
etc.
Craft
vocations
are
usually
based
on
manual
or
practical activities, traditionally
non-academic, related to a specific trade,
occupation, or vocation.
It
is
sometimes
referred
to
as
technical
education
as
the
trainee
directly
develops
expertise
in
a
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