¶ … building of the nation. Education not only means the acquisition of new skills and knowledge through classrooms and lectures but also meant to be the experience gotten while working under a skilled and knowledgeable person.
Many scholars and leaders in the past and today's world have thrown light on this topic through thousand of words and enlightened quotes. It is basically a thing which can not only change a person. But in fact it helps in changing the whole society and further to much larger extent than just a society. As Nelson Mandela said,
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world"
Nelson Mandela's words clearly illustrate the importance of education and its role in the development of society. In the modern era the power of education is accepted globally and it is crystal clear from the performance of literate people that only those nations develop in the modern world which possess higher literacy rate and whose youth and people are determined in getting high standard education. As Edward Everett wrote in his book,
"Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army"
The most important benefit of education is that once the people get awareness of it, it just passes from generation to generation and this process never stops. Thus in the long run it just spreads and benefits the whole bloc rather than forced to spread. So one kick start is required to run this process and after wards it just continues by itself. This process continues from generation to generation and after few decades it becomes the soul of society. This process is crystal clear from the examples of East Asian countries. Once few people get aware and become knowledgeable to good extent then they are actually capable of developing generations of educated people. Gilbert K. Chesterton said,
"Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another"
The question arises that if few peoples suffer and start this process, will it continue to produce educated generations in the future? Or will this process be required to be repeated every time? In this aspect Marcus Garvey said that education is actually the name of developing...
He wrote in his book,
"Education is the medium by which a people are prepared for the creation of their own particular civilization, and the advancement and glory of their own race"
We have seen that in recent times the African countries which are still living in the dark world due to lack of education has got the teachings of Marcus Garvey and Gilbert K. Chesterton, and they are working hard to develop their passionate people into knowledgeable persons, thus, producing future knowledge spreaders. This will ultimately develop the whole nation in the long run and can make the people aware about education and providing them opportunities to change their lives as well like the people in Europe and America.
In this aspect few bodies are working hard to spread the education in Africa as well. There is lot of problems which came out as barrier to the process. And biggest of them all is the Racism. Racism is the major cause which has actually restricted many Africans from getting their most basic right. They got discriminated in getting admission to high standard universities in European and American states just because of their color. As Kofi Annan said,
"Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development."
Despite a lot of people have proved racism as the supreme height of injustice and man movements are also passed in this aspect. Scholars also conveyed the idea that it is actually duty of the knowledgeable people to remove the racism part from the society at least from the institutes which are the source of education.
"It is your responsibility to change society if you think of yourself as an educated person."
(Baldwin)
This quote from James Baldwin reflects the duty and moral obligation of modern educators to attempt to eliminate racism in today's classrooms. If the role of education truly is to produce a better society, then the teacher must accept the onus of responsibility for this huge undertaking.
Freedom sisters is one of such movement…
