As the importance of light is better understood by experiencing darkness; so is the importance of education can be better understood by dwelling into the lack of it. Perhaps, an illiterate person who has never been to school and who has faced the curse of illiteracy could answer the question- “Why is education so important in our life?” better. He knows the importance of schools and what change could it brings to a person’s life.
The greatest sorrow of illiteracy is dependency. Yes! An illiterate person depends on others for his/her survival. Imagine if you were not educated enough to read this article, what would it have been like? Perhaps, the article would have looked like some alien code to you, impossible to decipher. Without education any human is like a hawk whose wings have been clipped; educations gives you wings to fly and explore, being confident and opportunistic. Education is like a powerful weapon which one uses to face the adversities of life and overcome poverty, fear, status and achieve success.
For any developing country, including India, to achieve the goals of development it becomes imperative that it eradicates social evils like- malnutrition, crime against women, child labor, illiteracy, corruption, gender inequality, crime rates, poverty, poor health and hygiene etc. Apart from overcoming these hindrances a developing country also needs to make its youths skilled and well educated so that they contribute constructively in the economical growth. Education is undoubtedly the most potent weapon to fight against all the social evils and is imperative for any nation to achieve development.
Poverty is one of the greatest evils of illiteracy. An illiterate youth is unlikely to be employed and is forced to live in poor inhuman condition, living on meager or no supply of resources; having no access to even basic amenities of health and sanitation.
Nigeria has overtaken India as a country with largest number of poor, but India is still the second in the list. India’s poverty is a result of illiteracy and one of its major effect- unemployment. In India nearly 70.6 Million people still live in abject poverty while Nigeria has 87 Million. The only hope of getting these people out of the vicious cycle of poverty is, by educating them and their children. More literacy means high employability which means better living conditions and eradication of poverty.
Economical growth and stability is only possible through education. Any developing nation has a pool of talent, which regularly gets wasted due to lack of education and the absence of required educational infrastructure. Nearly twenty million youths graduate annually in India, in various disciplines and set out to aid to the economical development of nation. If only we were able to educate all of those who lagged behind, what a tremendous change it would have brought to our economy. Educating our youth and adults is like tapping a hidden potential, which would ultimately only lead our nation to the path of development. Moreover we are the world’s fastest growing economy and so we need new and brighter minds that are aware of technological and scientific advancements around the world and are eager to implement the same.
A nation is nothing but an amalgamation of different societies. The behavior and growth of the individual societies reflects the behavior and growth of the nation. An educated, well cultured and progressive society; therefore, represents a progressive nation whose pupils are happy and content. A society can be happy and progressive only when it overcomes the shackles of poverty, unemployment, inequality, corruption, gender inequality, economical disparity etc, by making all of its citizens literate and by ensuring compulsory education for all.