Education of the children: who bears the ultimate responsibility?

My elder daughter (number 2) looked very thoughtful after family worship last night - the family usually sits around the table and do bible reading after dinner. Then commented, "dad, I realized that my school is trying to take over the education of every thing. Grooming, social etiquette, sexuality. Even how to brush my teeth - as in, I remember that in primary school. But aren't they supposed to be taught in the family?"

I gave my view: by right, ultimately, the responsibility of education for children lies on the shoulders of parents. Over time, partly because of the growing demands of work for the parents, some aspects of the education are neglected. From time to time, these areas of negligence are reflected in nationwide social problems such as higher rates of sexual activity among increasingly younger teens. When it blows into this magnitude, the state sees it not merely as something the family/community must fix but it gets elevated to a state effort. This usually means the burden falls on the Ministry of Education - that is, school teachers. This explains why, over time, the scope of what teachers have to teach has expanded quite dramatically. Apart from the subject areas, they go into sexuality education, national education, entreprenureship education, and - most recently - holistic education, among many others. But as the schools take on more of these educational roles, parents tend to take that as a signal that since the schools are doing the education - and seem to do a much better job than the parents -they are quite happy to delegate more and more educational responsibilities to the school, thus feeding into the cycle.

I asked my daughter if she likes it this way: the school taking over more and more educational domains beyond the traditional. She gave a mixed response. She understood that the school has far greater resources than the family. For example, she can't imagine the family can provide her with the level of dance support she is now getting from the school. But as to other things that are more values-based, such as sexuality education, she can sense that there is tension between what was taught in school with what we uphold in the family. She realized that the underlying world views are fundamentally different - one based on pragmatism alone and the other based on following the design of the Wise Maker.

I think my girl is growing up fast.