The Role of education in bringing about social change: Education plays an important role in social change. While, on the one hand, it is responsible for handing down traditions, culture, knowledge and skills from one generation to another; on the other, it acts as an agent of social change. New ideas and values are initiated by it and become the goals for the young generation to pursue and achieve.

One of the sociologists has defined education as "the influence exercised by the adult generation upon those who are not yet ready for adult life'. Its objective is to awaken and develop in the child those physical, intellectual and moral conditions, which are required of him, both by society as a whole and by the immediate social environment.

Society thus achieves two goals through education:

(i) To socialise, shape and develop the individual according to the social needs. and

(ii) To fulfil society's needs concerning human resources such as training for the specialised skills in industry and technology of the modern economy.

II. Formal and Informal Education: 

Before we explain the role of education as a factor of social change, it is important to understand the two main types of education system-formal and informal.

Education which is imparted in a well-defined institutional setting, if formal and that which an individual acquires in the course of his daily activities and interactions in the family and in society at large is informal.

Informal education dominates in societies, which are deficient in proper schools or where a formal schooling system is as yet undeveloped. In tribal and agrarian societies this is apparent. In such societies, children learn the language, traditional practices, fables, folk songs, music and productive skills like cattle rearing and sowing etc., through observation and interaction with their kinsmen.

Even in advanced societies, children receive informal education along with the formal learning they undertake in schools. For example, manners, etiquette and social skills are learnt by observations of behaviour of family members and those in the immediate surrounding.

Formal education characterises modern education as we know it today. Its chief components are 

(i) Regular and recognised schools.

(ii) Definite and properly spelt out content. and

(iii) Definite rules and regulations.

We now focus on the role of education as a factor of social change. The impact of education on different aspects of social life can be examined by studying the following:

(i) Socialisation and social control.

(ii) Development of human resources and stratification. and

(iii) Political education.