8 Major Benefits of Informal Education in Today’s World
We all know how important education is in order to achieve success in life. However, we only talk about formal education that we receive through our traditional education system. Most people do not even know what informal education is. You will be surprised to know that informal education has a lot of benefits to offer for your career than you realise.
Informal education is an occasion when we learn something without even realising that we are learning. It may happen when you talk to your friends, family or even to a stranger. Such education is involuntary and occurs during our everyday activities. It involves no actual planning or intention from the learner to acquire new knowledge.
Benefits of Informal Education for Your Career
The best part about informal education is that it does not feel like something that is forced on you, which traditional education feels at times. Since informal education happens without you realising, it never feels like a compulsion, and it does not get boring. From observing people from your bus window to listening to a podcast – informal education is available everywhere. Here is how it can benefit you:
1. You can learn from anyone:
As you may have noticed, in the formal, traditional education system, the learner is supposed to depend on a faculty of teachers or tutors to get the education. That is not the case for informal education. You can learn from literally anyone. Imagine that you are watching television, and a person on the TV show gives a random tip that you can add to your knowledge. So, at times, you can learn from fictional characters as well.
2. Less chance of getting bored:
You will rarely find a student who will admit that he/she never got bored in the class. Sadly, the traditional education system is designed in a way that students often feel bored in the classroom. However, informal education is not like that. Since it occurs during your regular activities, it does not feel forced. Moreover, your interest, curiosity and excitement are what drive the urge for this form of learning. Here, it is you who decide if you want to learn more or not.
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3. You seldom experience any resistance:
As discussed in the previous point, no one forces you to learn in informal education. You do it as a part of your daily activities. So, you are less likely to resist the new knowledge in this case. In fact, informal education is set in motion only when you are willing to pursue it further.
If you are listening to a podcast that is offering new knowledge about an issue, you can always choose to not listen to it. Then informal education, of that instance, ends right there. But in most cases, you do not resist informal education.
4. Does not require a certain level of knowledge:
In the formal, conventional education system, students often need prerequisite knowledge of something to attend a particular course or lesson. In informal education, however, you are free to start learning irrespective of the situation you are in.
Whether you are a complete novice in the subject area or someone with a great deal of expertise – informal learning does not discriminate.
5. Develop an interest that would not have been developed otherwise:
Informal learning has the potential to spark an interest that otherwise would not have sparked in individuals. When you are conversing with a friend or watching a video, it may encourage you to pursue a certain subject in more depth. Informal education rewards curiosity. You get more excited and satisfied with the new knowledge you get.
6. No fees required:
It is really sad that we need to spend thousands of dollars to get quality education in the traditional setting. A lot of students do not even have access to the resources needed for online learning. Since informal education does not depend on a specific medium, there is hardly any expenses related to it.
Yes, you may say that you need to pay for an internet connection and electronic devices to listen to podcasts or watch videos. However, talking to a stranger or learning new things while doing your everyday task does not require any additional fee.
7. Self-paced learning:
As mentioned several times before in this blog, informal education is not forced by anyone. So, you do not need to treat it like a compulsion. You can pursue informal education at your own pace. If you feel overwhelmed with the information, you always have the option to take a break, revisit the source once you are ready to learn again.
However, you are less likely to feel any resistance from this form of learning. You always have the option to prioritise your work deadlines and still learn new things.
8. Happens immediately:
Informal learning takes place immediately instead of taking a long period of studying and researching. It is true that to develop the content learnt from informal learning further after the initial stages; you can carry out further study and research paper help.
Since most of us have busy schedules to deal with, immediate learning, which happens in informal education, can be quite useful. Informal education gives you the space to pursue your other work while you learn something new.
Parting thoughts
As you may realise by now, we all need informal learning in our lives to succeed. And since it has this many benefits to offer, it will be a mistake to not pursue informal learning when you get the chance. So, just be open to learning new things, and whenever you get the opportunity, help others learn new things.
Author bio: Ben Ridley is a career counsellor who has been a part of several academic institutes over his 15-year long career. He is also associated with the team of experts at EassyAssignmenthelp.com.au, where he offers online exam help
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