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In the face of emerging global challenges including climatic change, heath, economic crisis and cultural issues, education remains the foundation for innovation and the advancement of human kind. Hence it is important for us to respond to these crucial problems to provide access to education by all. Theoretically this idea sounds wonderful and inspiring, but how many children in the world have access to quality education and how many have not? The answer is not easy to find as many nations do not have clear statistics of children who do not have access to even primary education. We don't have to run to deep African or Asian villages to find the graveness of this problem; we can see, feel and hear it around the corners of our cities. United Nations Millennium Goals has put much weight on achieving universal primary education by 2015. Looking at my own village I am not convinced that primary education alone could help children, the youth of tomorrow.
The basic necessities of humans are food, clothing and shelter. These basic necessities only can help a person live like animals. To live in a civilized society education is a not a want, but a basic need. However, the question remains how we get our children to have a good education, which can be the answer to eradicating poverty, developing a healthy society, and bringing communal harmony and peace to the world. While we understand the depth of this problem, we also need to develop new ways of thinking to solve this problem. It's commendable that many developing nations have put much effort into rural education development, but their problem remains with many children dropping school early and hence not being able to attain 21st century skills. We need to think and act fast to find better ways of education. Those new ways can not be just improvements of existing systems, which are mostly and currently unjustified. We need to think radically and liberally to bring newer solutions and means of delivering education to all children in the world by considering it as a critical need of the human kind. We need to think beyond our vision, obstacles and break barriers with breakthrough thinking and innovation to change existing paradigms to ensure children right to quality education. It's not a one way, but only way of making our world sustainable and survivable in emerging challenges. It is only education which can develop children to be future saviors of planet earth.
In a far village of Sri Lanka, where we work for education development, a parent said "I am trying to feed my child and find water for my farm, how am I supposed to take him to school everyday?", an expression of a typical problem faced by rural children in continuing their education. It simply tells us that we need to change the system and find ways to bring education to children. It may not be fair for us to only criticize the problems in education delivery to children without at least pointing a direction for solutions that can be implemented in a sustainable manner. One way we can try to solve this global problem is to use technology in innovative ways. Digital learning, for example, offers simpler and better solutions that ensure children's right to education. I think the time is quite right, it is only our commitment which is needed to make it happen. If I am given one wish by Almighty , it would be to deliver quality education to all the children that are currently isolated from the knowledge of the world.
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Writer Profile
shilpasayura
I am a Rural Education Development professional with Technology background. Currently engaged in Shilpa Sayura - Local Langauge e-Learning Project in Sri Lanka.
http://www.shilpasayura.org
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Comments
Education as resistance, not submission Roxanne Rahim | Sep 25th, 2012
I agree that we need to make education accessible to all, but we also need to remember that we can't just slap something together and call it Education. I've seen education in the form of brainwashing, and it pains me to see how much it is enforced by governments for generations.
Education is one of the best forms of resistance, organized microscale educators can enact more change than you can imagine. I do hope for a bright future with access to education.
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