Social Efficiency Ideology In Education

SOCIAL EFFICIENCY IDEOLOGY

Introduction:
The Social Efficiency ideology has its origins in four movements: social reform, utilitarian education, behavioral psychology, and scientific mythology (Callahan, 1962). The Social Efficiency ideology (SE) believes that the initial purpose of schooling is to meet the needs of society. Curriculum developers and educators who adopted the Social Efficiency Ideology view the curriculum as an instrument that prepares students to be contributing members of society and support the view that schools are places where students are prepared for a meaningful adult life. The fundamental concern of the Social Efficiency Ideology is scientific instrumentalism. This concern emphasizes that curriculum should be developed

Aims of education
According to Schiro (1978) in the Social Efficiency Ideology the curriculum developer’s first job is to determine the needs of society. The things that will fulfil these needs are called the terminal objectives of the curriculum. The Terminal objectives refer to the observable and measureable action of people and these objectives must be stated in behavioral terms that specify observable behaviors, action capabilities, actions, skills or cognitive process. The following are the aim of education according to Social Efficiency ideology:
1. The first aim of education is to perpetuate the functioning of the society.
Society is made up of men. And men take on their meaning as well as their fulfilment and pleasure, by participating in society. The way to prepare the individual to lead the meaningful adult life with in society is to provide him with the skill which will allow him to be constructively active within the social

Education was not important in its own right, its value lay in the preparation it offered children for their lives as adults.
Bobbitt along with other early-twentieth-century efficiency-oriented school reformers made the case that the curriculum ought to be differentiated into numerous programs, some academic and preparatory that is necessary for all learner to live a better social life in the society and others vocational and terminal, and schools should assign children to these specialized curricular tracks, on the basis of assessments of their intellectual abilities, which fore-told their ultimate destinies in life.
Social Efficiency educators use two types of panning while making curricula: (1) they must predetermine the relation between cause and effect, action and reaction or stimulus and response, and (2) they must plan causes, actions, or stimuli that in a direct and predictable manner will lead to the desirable effect, reaction, or response. As a result, the changes that are planned during curriculum creation are only those which fit into a stimulus-response pattern and which can be observed to be directly behaviourally