Our car had just stopped on a red signal when someone knocked on the window glass. I put off the blinds from glass. He was about 16 years old tall boy footed with torn slippers whose black colour had completely faded. He handed me a pen to buy, reluctantly I took from him and handed him the price for it. The signal had gone green, the traffic moved and I kept on looking at him walking his way towards another potential customer.
The pen he should have used to write and used as his weapon of knowledge, he was selling it to have earning for the survival of life. When I narrated this to my friend and her reply dismayed me more than that boy’s life. She said, “You don’t need to worry about him and such other children. They are born poor and they are meant to live their lives likewise; education is not for them; they are habitual of doing hard work this way.”
It is not about the children and teenagers only who can’t study. It is about every single person no matter what age group s/he belongs to. It is their right to get educated and to have a better future. Education can’t be personalized to some legacy rather it is that brick of the building without which the building can neither be completed nor be beautified.
Education is the most important tool that enables a person to meet the tough challenges of life, to have a respectful life and to have less worries regarding financial issues. Education is not just studying but learning. Knowledge gained by education assists in practical life at every step of life. Education enhances the opportunities in one’s life to have better career building that eventually leads to economic and social prosperity of a country.
A better and prosperous future is only possible through education. Not only education enhances the knowledge of career building but also provides a better understanding of social, cultural and religious aspects of world. One can interpret the good and evil based on one’s awareness that education has granted him/her. An educated person is aware and sensitive to others’ rights and his own duties. He knows how to move in a society, he knows his love with the people and his country, he is mindful of the fact that education he is getting is not just for his wellbeing but the light of this education has to be spread and doles people around.
Thus, the real meaning of acquiring education is not just to be successful economically but also socially. The better future is attained by excelling in both, the former and latter and this better future is not only for an individual but also for the whole society. To make dreams come true, to bring change in life and to be successful, education is the only weapon we own to help us achieve all this, as beautifully said by Nelsone Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”