Philosophy of education is as old as man. There are various philosophies of education which are categorised based on the time or period the advocates of such school of thought existed and particularly when their thinking got recognition in their immediate society and the world at large.

The philosophies are in two major categories namely: ancient philosophies of education and contemporary philosophies of education. Ancient philosophies are old philosophies that gained recognition in the B.Cs (Before Christ) like the Idealism of Plato, Realism of Aristotle, Naturalism of Rousseau and so on.

Contemporary philosophies on the other hand, are relatively recent philosophies in which their advocators propounded and they gained recognition in not very far away period (from 13th century downward). For example; Pragmatism of Dewey, Existentialism of Sartre, Perennialism of Hardler and so on, constitute various examples of contemporary philosophies of education. However, the fact that only a single philosopher is given as an advocate of the various philosophies does not suggest that there are no other thinkers who subscribe to the arguments of the various philosophies at different point in time. In fact there are numerous.

Moreover, the thinking of different philosophers which have various implications for education using the philosophical tools of speculative, prescriptive, analytical as well as logical modes of philosophising to reach a sound, coherent and consistent conclusion about the various problems of education is what is regarded as philosophy of education.

In conclusion, it must be emphasised that for a thinking to qualify as philosophy or philosophy of education, the thinking must according to Akinpelu (1981), be comprehensive enough to the extent that one can point out easily from it what constitute the ultimate reality, the nature of existence and ultimate truth (that is, metaphysics) aslo, what can be considered as knowledge, its nature and how man can acquire it (epistemology), and what constitute values (axiology) and its nature must all be present and easily identifiable in the work for it to be considered as a philosophy of education.