Education in ancient civilization

 Middle East 

ancient and medieval (pre-Reformation) societies.

In ancient Israel, the Torah (the fundamental religious text) includes commands to read, learn, teach, and write the Torah, thus requiring literacy and study. In 64 AD the high priest caused schools to be opened.Emphasis was placed on developing good memory skills in addition to comprehension oral repetition. For details of the subjects taught, see History of education in ancient Israel and Judah. Although girls were not provided with formal education in the yeshivah, they were required to know a large part of the subject areas to prepare them to maintain the home after marriage and educate the children before age seven. Despite this schooling system, it would seem that many children did not learn to read and write, because it has been estimated that "at least ninety percent of the Jewish population of Roman Palestine [in the first centuries AD] could merely write their name or not write and read at all", or that the literacy rate was about 3 percent.

India

                    Nalanda teaching platform 

The Gurukula system of education supported traditional Sanskrit residential schools of learning; typically the teacher's house or a monastery. In the Gurukul system, the teacher (Guru) and the student (Śiṣya) were considered to be equal even if they belonged to different social standings. Students from well-to-do families paid "Gurudakshina", a voluntary contribution after the completion of their studies. Gurudakshina is a mark of respect by the students towards their Guru. It is a way in which the students acknowledge, thank, and respect their Guru, whom they consider to be their spiritual guide. At the Gurukuls, the teacher imparted knowledge of religion, scriptures, philosophy, literature, warfare, statecraft, Ayurveda, astrology and mythological history. [citation needed] The corpus of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as technical scientific, philosophical and generally Sanskrit religious texts, though many central texts of Buddhism and Jainism have also been composed in Sanskrit.

Two epic poems formed part of ancient Indian education. The Mahabharata, part of which may date back to the 8th century BC, discusses human goals (purpose, pleasure, duty, and liberation), attempting to explain the relationship of the individual to society and the world (the nature of the 'Self') and the workings of karma. The other epic poem, Ramayana, is shorter, although it has 24,000 verses. It is thought to have been compiled between about 400 BC and 200 AD. The epic explores themes of human existence and the concept of dharma (doing ones duty)

Buddhist Education

In the Buddhist education system, the subjects included Pitakas.

Vinaya Pitaka

It is a Buddhist canon that contains a code of rules and regulations that govern the Buddhist community residing in the Monastery. The Vinaya Pitaka is especially preached to Buddhist monks (Sanga) to maintain discipline when interacting with people and nature. The set of rules ensures that people, animals, nature, and the environment are not harmed by the Buddhist monks.

Sutta Pitaka

It is divided into 5 niyakas (collections). It contains Buddha's teachings recorded mainly as sermons.

Abhidhamma Pitaka

It contains a summary and analysis of Buddha's teachings.

An early center of learning in India dating back to the 5th century BC was Taxila (also known as Takshashila), which taught the trayi Vedas and the eighteen accomplishments.It was an important Vedic/Hindu and Buddhist centre of learning from the 6th century to the 5th century 

Another important center of learning from the 5th century CE was Nalanda. In the kingdom of Magadha, Nalanda was well known Buddhist monastery. Scholars and students from Tibet, China, Korea, and Central Asia traveled to Nalanda in pursuit of education. Vikramashila was one of the largest Buddhist monasteries that was set up in the 8th to 9th centuries.

China

According to legendary accounts, the rulers Yao and Shun (ca. 24th–23rd century BC) established the first schools. The first education system was created in the Xia dynasty (2076–1600 BC). During the Xia dynasty, the government built schools to educate aristocrats about rituals, literature, and archery (important for ancient Chinese aristocrats).

During the Shang dynasty (1600 BC to 1046 BC), normal people (farmers, workers, etc.) accepted rough education. At that time, aristocrats' children studied in government schools. Normal people studied in private schools. Government schools were always built in cities and private schools were built in rural areas. Government schools paid attention to educating students about rituals, literature, politics, music, arts, and archery. Private schools educated students to do farm work and handworks.

During the Zhou dynasty (1045–256 BC), there were five national schools in the capital city, Pi Yong (an imperial school, located in a central location), and four other schools for the aristocrats and nobility, including Shang Xiang. The schools mainly taught the Six Arts: rites, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and mathematics. According to the Book of Rites, at age twelve, boys learned arts related to ritual (i.e. music and dance) and when older, archery and chariot driving. Girls learned ritual, correct deportment, silk production, and weaving.

It was during the Zhou dynasty that the origins of native Chinese philosophy also developed. Confucius (551–479 BC) founder of Confucianism, was a Chinese philosopher who made a great impact on later generations of Chinese, and on the curriculum of the Chinese educational system for much of the following 2000 years.

Later, during the Qin dynasty (246–207 BC), a hierarchy of officials was set up to provide central control over the outlying areas of the empire. To enter this hierarchy, both literacy and knowledge of the increasing body of philosophy were required: "....the content of the educational process was designed not to engender functionally specific skills but rather to produce morally enlightened and cultivated generalists".

During the Han dynasty (206–221 AD), boys were thought ready at age seven to start learning basic skills in reading, writing, and calculation.[28] In 124 BC, the Emperor Wudi established the Imperial Academy, the curriculum of which was the Five Classics of Confucius. By the end of the Han dynasty (220 AD) the academy enrolled more than 30,000 students, boys between the ages of fourteen and seventeen years. However, education through this period was a luxury.

The nine-rank system was a civil service nomination system during the Three Kingdoms (220–280 AD) and the Northern and Southern dynasties (420–589 AD) in China. Theoretically, local government authorities were given the task of selecting talented candidates, and then categorizing them into nine grades depending on their abilities. In practice, however, only the rich and powerful would be selected. The Nine Rank System was eventually superseded by the imperial examination system for the civil service in the Sui dynasty (581–618 AD).

Greece

Aristotle and his disciples – Alexander, Demetrius, Theophrastus, and Strato, in an 1888 fresco in the portico of the National University of Athens

In the city-states of ancient Greece, most education was private, except in Sparta. For example, in Athens, during the 5th and 4th century BC, aside from two years of military training, the state played little part in schooling.Anyone could open a school and decide the curriculum. Parents could choose a school offering the subjects they wanted their children to learn, at a monthly fee they could afford.Most parents, even the poor, sent their sons to schools for at least a few years, and if they could afford it from around the age of seven until fourteen, learning gymnastics (including athletics, sport, and wrestling), music (including poetry, drama, and history) and literacy.Girls rarely received formal education. At writing school, the youngest students learned the alphabet by song, then later by copying the shapes of letters with a stylus on a waxed wooden tablet. After some schooling, the sons of poor or middle-class families often learned a trade by apprenticeship, whether with their father or another tradesman.

By around 350 BC, it was common for children at schools in Athens to also study various arts such as drawing, painting, and sculpture. The richest students continued their education by studying with sophists, from whom they could learn subjects such as rhetoric, mathematics, geography, natural history, politics, and logic. Some of Athens' greatest schools of higher education included the Lyceum (the so-called Peripatetic school founded by Aristotle of Stageira) and the Platonic Academy (founded by Plato of Athens). The education system of the wealthy ancient Greeks is also called Paideia. In the subsequent Roman empire, Greek was the primary language of science. Advanced scientific research and teaching were mainly carried on in the Hellenistic side of the Roman empire, in Greek.

The education system in the Greek city-state of Sparta was entirely different, designed to create warriors with complete obedience, courage, and physical perfection. At the age of seven, boys were taken away from their homes to live in school dormitories or military barracks. There they were taught sports, endurance and fighting, and little else, with harsh discipline. Most of the population was illiterate.

Rome

Roman portraiture fresco of a young man with a papyrus scroll, from Herculaneum, 1st century AD

first schools in Ancient Rome arose by the middle of the 4th century BC.These schools were concerned with the basic socialization and rudimentary education of young Roman children. The literacy rate in the 3rd century BC has been estimated as around 1–2%. There are very few primary sources or accounts of the Roman educational process until the 2nd century BC,during which there was a proliferation of private schools in Rome.At the height of the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire, the Roman educational system gradually found its final form. Formal schools were established, which served paying students (very little in the way of free public education as we know it can be found).Normally, both boys and girls were educated, though not necessarily together. In a system much like the one that predominates in the modern world, the Roman education system developed arranged schools in tiers.

The educator Quintilian recognized the importance of starting education as early as possible, noting that "memory … not only exists even in small children but is specially retentive at that age".A Roman student would progress through schools just as a student today might go from elementary school to middle school, then to high school, and finally to college. Progression depended more on ability than age with great emphasis being placed upon a student's ingenium or inborn "gift" for learning,and a more tacit emphasis on a student's ability to afford high-level education. Only the Roman elite would expect a complete formal education. A tradesman or farmer would expect to pick up most of his vocational skills on the job. Higher education in Rome was more of a status symbol than a practical concern.

Literacy rates in the Greco-Roman world were seldom more than 20 percent; averaging perhaps not much above 10 percent in the Roman empire, though with wide regional variations, probably never rising above 5 percent in the western provinces. The literate in classical Greece did not much exceed 5 percent of the population.