The Key to Success: Education

The emphasis laid on the principle of spending every minute of one’s life usefully is the best education for citizenship.”- Gandhi.

If given an opportunity to begin a New World, I hope that its citizens would receive a well-rounded education. Education is important because it imparts physical and mental skills on many different levels. Education helps improves survival and therefore paves way for better health and wealth. Also a really educated mind is also at peace knowing how to rightly deal with problems. All knowledge and skills of a society are passed down from previous generation to the next through the process of education. Hence it is the key to a society’s success and sustenance for it is an element that primarily differentiates man from beast. Let’s see a few examples of how I think education would be of use in the New World.

Firstly, education helps improves ones knowledge of survival and improves basic necessities (food, clothing, and shelter) so that they are available at ease. With improved techniques in farming, agriculture, textiles and building technology more of quality food, clothing and housing is made available to people. Availability of good food, clothing and shelter supports health. Also in the “New World” for example, ill -health can be treated by a doctor who has had schooling in medical science. Most simple illnesses can be corrected with the right medications. The knowledge that the doctors need to find the right medication is imparted through the education he/she received at the medical school. Correct knowledge of surgeries can correct most other illnesses that cannot be treated with just medicines. From this, we can see that survival and health is achieved through education.

Secondly, education provides good fortune, which comes through good jobs. For example, good education gives the learner better skills and so they get better jobs with higher salaries. Education can also make man find opportunities that create work and jobs for himself and many others. In this process education therefore helps to create more jobs and more fortune for everyone.

 Thirdly, education teaches us how to rightly deal with certain situations those challenge us. At a very simple level, knowledge in basic math and science is useful for everyday life problems. For instance arithmetic teaches us to deal with money or to measure gas to fill in our automobile’s tanks.  For a ‘New World’ learning from the previous is crucial for success as one can learn from history's success and failure. Everyday news helps us learn about what happens in the rest of the world and how they deal with their problems. The news then educates us on how we can use their solutions for our problems. Without this crucial exchange of information and learning, the world would be divided into different parts each on different levels. 

Furthermore, because ignorance can be the root of all evil, moral education teaches man to define what is right and what is wrong, so that he does not harm himself and others around him. All other knowledge will perish if humans don’t care for each other. Gandhi once rightly claimed, “The emphasis laid on the principle of spending every minute of one’s life usefully is the best education for citizenship.” - meaning that if people made sure that every minute they spent was useful then it is the best knowledge for citizenship. People who constantly make right choices make up a great society.

           

Importantly, as mentioned earlier education passes down a society’s knowledge skill and values from previous generation to the next. If this process is stopped, everybody then starts from scratch and not much progress can happen. Without education, the New World would be in regression. People won’t have the same amenities like today. Therefore, if given the opportunity to begin a New World, I would hope the society would be built around well-rounded education that would ensure good citizenship among its enlightened occupants.