Education: "Equality of Opportunity" vs "Equality of Outcome"

Equality and Diversity
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Explain the terms ‘equality of opportunity and ‘equality of outcome.’ What different implications do these concepts have in relation to understanding inequalities in education?
Equality of opportunity offers every learner a fair chance at accessing opportunities to reach their goals and improve their lives irrespective of their background CITATION Arn15 \l 1033 (Arneson, 2015). The opportunity should be available for all in an open and fair forum. On the other hand, equality of outcome is the belief that members of society should have the same outcome. Thus, the people are not only offered the opportunity, but also enabled to take advantage of that opportunity. These two concepts have vastly different implications on how inequality in education is addressed in education. The lens through which inequalities of education are addressed is pegged on how they are interpreted. For example, in equality of opportunity, a class will have the same teaching and learning resources for the students, and therefore, everyone has an equal chance of getting a good quality education. On the other hand, equality of outcome would ensure that all students in that class, irrespective of their intellectual ability, achieve the desired objective of learning, i.e. all students are able to read and write. This may prompt teachers to allocate more resources, i.e. time to the poorer performers and work with them to ensure they catch up with fast learners, but in the end, all students can read and write.
Equality of opportunity in education is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948) as ‘the notion that there should be equality of opportunity in education, where everyone has fair and equal access to a good quality education regardless of social background, race, gender or religion, and where people achieve success in education according to their efforts and ability, free of any form of discrimination CITATION Mac03 \l 1033 (Maclean, 2003). This notion embodies several principles, amongst them access to education for all. Their pursuit of educational goals should not be determined by their social, economic, political and cultural backgrounds but guaranteed as to their birthright. Equality of opportunity discourages any form of discrimination that can hamper or reduce the chances of academic success based on any factor, not of the individual choice. Historically, cultural factors like religion, race, gender, and social background, among other lines through which humans differ, determined the quality of education a child would get. Equality of opportunity seeks to quash these barriers and ensure that each child has had a fair shot at getting a good quality education.
However, it is important to note that equality of education does not guarantee equality of outcome. Children have different learning abilities, and if no further interventions are done for some students, they may fall behind. Therefore, the idea of equality of opportunity does not guarantee that the child will receive full development of their human personality and realize their full potential. Therefore, equality of opportunity seeks to break the barriers that hinder some students from accessing education at the societal level and give them a fair chance which does not reflect their cultural, historical, social or economic background.
On the other hand, equality of outcome in education is the notion that the society ought to institute measures not only to have equal access to education but also to what the child gains from the education. It is important that children actually become literate rather than have an opportunity to read, which could be missed CITATION McC22 \l 1033 (McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, n.d.). Because of different learning abilities and speeds, equality of outcome is not always guaranteed, and in some cases, there ought to be interventions to help all students achieve the desired goals of education. While equality of opportunity operates at the societal level, equality of outcome comes down to the individual. The individual circumstances of the learner have to be factored in allocating resources. It does not necessarily mean that all students will get the same grades, but they will have gained the skill or achieved the objective desired in learning/teaching. To achieve equality of outcome, learners are not only offered the opportunity, but also enabled to take that opportunity. Thus, there may be necessary interventions to ensure equality of outcome to level the playing field for all learners. For example, in equality of opportunity, all learners are provided with the same reading materials in the same environment and given equal time to finish reading a passage irrespective of their visual ability. Equality of outcome, the same learners are accorded the necessary help such as more lighting for the visually impaired, and if in the extreme case there is a clinically blind student, he/she is afforded braille materials and helped on how to use them. The outcome is for all students to read the passage, and the approach of equality of outcome will guarantee that all learners will be able to achieve that objective.
Concisely, these two philosophies of education are important and work collaboratively towards developing full human potential. Equality of opportunity in education brings down the barriers for learners at the societal level. It ensures that access to good education for all learners is not determined by their social, cultural, economic or political background but by their own individual efforts and abilities. On the other hand, equality of outcome focuses more on the learner to ensure that he/she is not left behind. Equality of outcome is pegged on the premise that learners have many individual challenges unique to each learner, and the system must adopt a learner-centric model of education to help them achieve the desired outcome of education. Equality to opportunity alone is not enough. There is a need for more interventions at the learner level ...