“Education: A pathway for a girl to live her desired life.”
As per my experience, this quote actually describes my path and why every girl needs to be educated. As we all know, girls and women are supposed to be 50% of the total population. And if half of the people around us are not educated in any manner, imagine what the scenario could be! They would not know what you are talking about; they would not share the same viewpoint, and not only this, they would not even understand where you are coming from.
Yeah! This is also a part of education – accommodating and understanding other people’s perspective and understanding oneself.
What do I mean by that- understanding ourselves? Do I mean that people who did not get educated in schools do not understand themselves and other people? No, I don’t mean that. What I am saying is education is education- be it formal or informal.
Education has a vast meaning, i.e. education doesn’t mean that you must attend school or college; it can mean that you know what you are doing, and for that, first you have to do something. Meaning, I might not have ever joined any school, but I know how to trade my wheat crops. I am educated in my field as I know everything related to growing and selling my crops, the market price, ups and downs due to weather changes, and knowledge about my gains and losses.
Moreover, the idea of education has been confined to getting admission to a school in the 21st century, which has proved to provide a basic knowledge of the subjects. Moreover, since the students get an environment and interact with each other daily, they start developing many qualities that help shape their persona later in life.
So, the idea of educating girls boils down to sending them to schools and why it is all the more important to do so. There can be several reasons for that.
As we all know, in India, it is a custom for a girl to leave her birth house, called a parent’s house and settle with the boy (her husband) and in-laws after marriage. So, if she is educated, she can better take care of herself and her needs. As the saying goes, “when mom is happy, everyone’s happy”.
She can be a better mother, a better wife, a better “bahu,” if you will. Now, better may not seem the same in everyone’s eyes. It can be different for different people. For example: for in-laws, better bahu can be the one who listens to them. For a husband, a better wife can be the one who takes care of him and his children.
For the girl herself, she can be a better person, who not only takes care of others but also takes care of herself, speaks out her needs, demands respect, demands equal treatment and have a say in growing at a personal and professional level, be able to grab the opportunities not only in the personal but professional field too.
Now, you must be wondering why education is so important for these basic conditions to flourish. This is because it is tough in this day and age for a girl to speak for herself even when she is educated and earning a decent living, let alone for the one who has never been anywhere but inside her home, all the time of her life.
Going to school, college is a chance to gain theoretical knowledge and get to know people and be able to grow in any aspect of her life in which she sees fit, which otherwise she had not gotten a chance to. Education gives you courage. It gives you the power to state your truth and follow your passion, no matter what!
Being financially independent is one of the many benefits of education, but of course, it is a significant one. Education provides the way for a girl to grow in multiple aspects. First, it gives you the power to stand for yourself, even if the whole world seems to be standing against you.
It helps in improving the quality of everyone’s life, which she is a part of. She sprinkles her magical toppings on everyone around her. Education helps to know what is right, what is wrong and what is not acceptable.
There are chances that an uneducated girl or, say, who has never been to school, would not report a domestic violence case, would not file a divorce case, would not stand for her fundamental rights.
It is not to say that only education cures every problem and provides you with the solutions, but it surely gives you the tool of believing in yourself that you can conquer anything life throws at you.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world – Nelson Mandela.”