Why Education is Important
Introduction: Since time immemorial, education has always been there. It has undergone many changes to become the complex field it is today. Currently, education has so many disciplines that it’s had to cover all of them in a single lifetime.
What is education? The word education comes from the Latin word educare. Educare means to draw out. This etymology can shed light on the true meaning of education.
Hence, education refers to the process of imparting knowledge into an individual. Some people define education as filling a person’s head with facts and knowledge. However, etymologically, education seems to be more about drawing out a person’s true potential.
Being educated is totally different from being literate. Literacy refers to the ability to read and write while being educated refers to being knowledgeable. Let’s look at some of the reasons why education is important.
28 Reasons Why Education is Important
Education is so important, and we should all keep on educating ourselves throughout our lives. Below are 25 reasons why education is so important.
- For Knowledge: Education provides us with knowledge about ourselves, the universe and other living creatures. This knowledge, in turn, helps us to know how we should correlate for greater purposes. When we understand the science of geology, for instance, what seemed before to be a dull, bland cliff face suddenly becomes a record of immense moments in the history of earth. Knowledge of biology brings the meadows to life with natural history and knowledge of architecture, history and literature turns every street corner or patch of ground into a site that is rich in meaning thanks to its associations with authors past and present, exciting innovations in architecture or historic battles or agreements.
- To get employment: Education equips us with skills and tools that help us get enrolled in organizations where we render our services for income.
- To know your rights: Education enlightens us. It helps us to know what our rights are and what to do when they are broken.
- To appreciate each other’s culture: Education teaches us the culture of different societies that make up the world. By understanding others’ way of life, we are able to appreciate them. The more that we know about different cultures, about different religious, about different philosophies and about history, the more we realise that there are many ways of seeing the world. This helps us to get a useful perspective on the world and to empathize more with the views of others.
- For the country’s development: By enabling us to earn income, education helps us succeed, which in turn leads to the improved economy. As we both all work hard as individuals, our collective efforts are seen in the country’s improved GDP.
- Make us human: Education bestows within us the ability to reason which sets us apart from robots. It’s reasoning that makes us care for each other and the environment.
- For socialization: Education systems are set up in populated places. This enables us to make friends and form new ties.
- Improves creativity: The knowledge we obtain from education help us to think creatively through deduction, analysis, evaluation and many more. It’s this creativity that brings forth new inventions.
- To manage crises: We encounter a lot of crisis in life from crumbling economies to allocation of limited resources. Education helps us to manage such crises by making sober decisions.
- Independent thought: True education is not just about absorbing facts. Rather, it is about learning to think properly for ourselves. This is one reason why education is so important: it teaches us to think critically about the world around us and to make better informed decisions about our life.
- To avoid being fooled: Being educated shields you from people who are used to duping others. When you are educated, it’s easier to tell if a person is lying or not.
- Respect: Educated person is always give and command respect of others.
- Makes us rational beings: Since we are guided by intellect, education has made us rational beings. We are able to reason before doing anything in a rush. Anyone can be opinionated, but truly educated people know that it is important to back up our opinions with facts. In the same vein, education helps us to check the beliefs and opinions of others against the facts so that we can decide whether to share those opinions or to reject them.
- Makes us confident: Education has made us confident beings. We are able to tackle challenging issues life throws our way.
- Helps us to learn many languages: Education opens a channel for an individual to learn many languages thus appreciating other people’s culture. Learning many languages also widens our social interaction beyond local boundaries.
- Makes us law-abiding citizens: Education teaches us to be law-abiding citizens. It enlightens us the importance of respecting each other’s boundaries and solving conflicts to avoid scuffles.
- Saves the environment: Education teaches us to care for the environment for both our sake’s and that of the coming generation.
- Low infant mortality: Educated parents know how to take care of their kids by providing them with shelter, food, clothing and medication. This has lowered the infant mortality rate in many places.
- For building new technologies: Every day, scientist and inventors are always working hard to come up with new technologies to help human beings live better lives.
- Improved lifestyle: Most educated individuals live a good lifestyle. We are talking about wearing classic garments, eating in the best hotels and owning some of the latest technological gadgets.
- Foregoing baseless superstitions: With the power of reasoning, education helps us to distinguish right from wrong and logical from illogical.
- Fosters equality: Educated people respect each other. They respect human life and know that we are all made of the same stuff.
- Helps us correct mistakes made by previous generations: By digging deeper into the way of life of our former generations, education has helped us forge new directions by avoiding the mistakes they made. This has minimized our failures while promoting advancement.
- Broadens our horizon: Education has equipped us with skills and knowledge that widens our minds to think far and beyond. By avoiding stagnation, we are able to explore new abilities and talents.
- Upholding ethical values: Education teaches us to monitor our temper and other antisocial behaviors. By keeping such behavior in check, we are able to live peaceful lives without feuds.
- Keeping the brain active: Education, if continued throughout our lives, keeps our brain active and as such helps to keep our memory and cognitive abilities sharp. Life long learners have been shown to have a greater chance of avoiding dementia, for example.
- Enjoyment: Getting educated is enjoyable, and we can make our closest friends in the classroom. It is enjoyable to learn new facts and to achieve new things, to wonder at the world and to solve increasingly harder and harder problems.
- Educating others: The essential thing to remember about education is that it should be passed on down the generations. Getting an education is thus also important because it enables you to teach others. Education grows and grows. And, one of the true joys of education is definitely being able to pass it on.
Conclusion: Education is not just an important tool to get a job (though that is very important of course), it is also a joy in itself. It gives us perspective on the world, helps us to shape our opinions and enables us to help others as well. The more educated we become, the more resourceful we will be to this generation and the next.
