There’s no equality without educational equity: A lesson from “Animal Farm”

Parlindungan Pardede

parlpard2020@gmail.com

Universitas kristen Indonesia

Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the US Supreme Court, once accentuated the importance of educational equity for attaining equality within a nation by saying “Until we get equality in education, we won’t have an equal society.” This statement indicates that to attain equality in a nation, providing the citizens with ‘potluck’ education is not enough. The education should be equitable, which, according to OECD (2008), covers fairness (everyone, regardless of the personal and social condition, can afford it) and inclusion (everyone should be allowed to achieve a comprehensive standard). Educational inequity will only create class stratification, and, thus, will alienate equality.

This idea is exposed by George Orwell in one of his best novels, Animal Farm (1945). What is more, he further explores that the educated elite can use educational inequity as a powerful weapon to…