The majority of Park Animals receive their basic education at home, according to the results of a study completed last year.
The study, which was commissioned by the 2011 Archons in conjunction with the Park Education Working Collective (PEWC), was conducted by researchers at the F. Varrah Flanagan School of Education at the University of West Terrier.
The results of the study, published yesterday in the academic quarterly, Journal of Education Theory and Experience (JETE), indicate that a very small minority of Animals take advantage of any of the educational opportunities offered free of charge by The Park.
“This is an area of great concern to us,” said head researcher Domoina Fossa. “Over the past few years, we have witnessed an increase in interspecial crime and particularly violent crime. We believe this could be mitigated by introducing Animals to other species at an earlier point in their lives.”
According to renowned Park historian, Beatrice Zilonis, currently a professor in the Department of History at UWT, the impetus for developing The Park’s educational resources was exactly that idea:
“Interspecial harmony is one of the guiding principles of zoocracy. It was one of Jor’s [The Park’s first leader and the founder of modern zoocracy] core beliefs that we must foster interspecial harmony through Animals’ knowledge of and friendship with different species,” says Zilonis.
Many in The Park believe that basic education for Animals has been neglected and that institutions of higher learning have received a disproportionate amount of attention and resources in recent years.
“We will have to attend to this unbalanced situation if we want to avoid serious problems in the future,” says researcher Fossa.
