Education illuminates your future, and guides you towards the right direction.

Education shapes thoughts and decisions. It forms a visible path at the end of which lies the person’s personal ambitions and goals. However, many people are not able to make full use of education in order to become better, more capable, successful and positive human beings. As Robert Frost correctly implied through his poem, ‘The Road Not Taken’, a person must always choose the road that the person is most comfortable with, irrespective of the number of followers or leaders. One must never be among the flock of sheep, but must instead form a whole new pack, encouraging others to follow suit. If a person wants to be an artist, then an artist s/he must strive to become.

Without education, life may seem like a walk in a dense forest where no light penetrates. Without the guiding hand of education, we would find ourselves walking about without a clue of what is right, often bumping at trees that would signify problems that an uneducated person may have to face. It is thus extremely crucial that a person forms their guiding path for if uncertainties lie within them, it would result in a sudden destruction of the set goal.

Education helps us to create our own goal-setting. But in this process, we may often confuse education with attaining institutional degrees and good jobs. What we fail to see is that education is not just about acquiring skills, it is also about learning to respect other’s opinions, thoughts and feelings. Also, education starts at home. What we achieve at school and college/university level is only the means by which we reach the goals that we have set for ourselves. Hence, education is not only about gaining knowledge. It is also about honing personal skills and achieving moral values.

With the guidance of good, positive, enlightened teachers, education shapes us in such a way that we make our own decisions and not take the shape of a person that others have designed for us.  If we look at how Plato, in The Republic, had outlined the shape and curriculum of an education system in an ideal society, we understand that “educating is a moral enterprise and it is the duty of educators to search for truth and virtue, and in so doing guide those they have a responsibility to teach.”

While an ‘ideal society’, as envisaged by Plato, may not be practical in today’s social scenario, one must acknowledge that education as a profession, industry, mission and objective has changed the face of the human society. Literacy has increased manifold, the working population is now better educated, educational institutions have increased many times in numbers and application of technology in education has advanced rapidly. Moral education, right from primary school stage, so forcefully emphasized by Plato, is also a direct benefit of the modern education system.

One of the biggest benefits of education has been the liberation of women from centuries of subjugation, illiteracy and economic dependence on their male counterparts. Women have defied old norms and broken barriers by stepping into the world of sweat, grime, politics, disappointment and money, which was previously considered to be fit only for the male population. And they have done so with as much of conviction and enthusiasm as there ever could be. Faring well, and even better than men in many fields, women have finally found an outlet through which they could escape the oppressive chauvinistic attitude. This has all been possible due to education through which women have now been able to claim their rights. Education not only provides women with an ambitious spirit, but also makes them aware of their rights as a human being so that they may achieve their goals.