Education is the transmission of knowledge, skills, and values and the cultivation of character. It occurs in formal institutions such as schools and universities, in structured non-formal settings like tutoring or scouting, and informally through everyday life. Systems are commonly organized into levels—early childhood, primary, secondary, and tertiary—and further categorized by subject, teaching method, medium, and funding.
Definitions of education are contested: some see it as a process, others as the mental states of an educated person, or as an academic field. Thick, value-laden conceptions emphasize improvement and critical thinking, especially to distinguish education from indoctrination. Education both stabilizes societies by transmitting norms and transforms them by fostering awareness, innovation, and responses to global challenges such as climate change and inequality.
Governments, schools, international organizations, and NGOs shape curricula, access, and standards. Educational success depends on psychological factors (motivation, intelligence, personality), sociological factors (socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender), technology, teacher quality, school infrastructure, and parent involvement.
Education has evolved from prehistoric enculturation and oral storytelling to the written traditions of ancient civilizations, religious and scholarly institutions of the medieval era, and mass public schooling after the printing press, Enlightenment, and industrialization. Today most primary-age children attend school, and digital technologies and globalization are reshaping learning through online and open education.
Education studies examines aims, ideologies, learning theories, teaching methods, and policy using quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods, with subfields such as philosophy, psychology, sociology, economics, and comparative and historical studies.