Image Credit: Ralph Daily
by Diksha Singh
How does one define ‘quality of life’? Generally, it is an indication of the well-being enjoyed within a society and its people. Sometimes, the term is equated with ‘standard of living’. However, the standard of living is measured in terms of employment and status while quality of life is measured in terms of education, human rights, recreation, mental health, physical heal and other factors.
Education tops the list. Why?
Education is not about learning alphabet, abacus and science. It’s not about academia, it goes beyond pedagogy. It is a tool, a resourceful tool that teaches us to be ‘humans’. It is our forever valid passport to the world. A good education may give you a job but intrinsic education teaches you about creating a quality of life, teaches you to create opportunities and engage in self-development.
How Education Improves our Quality of Life?
Makes us resourceful.
When we are resourceful, we have better problem solving skills and these skills help us immensely when we leave the cocooned world of parental tutelage and academic learning.
Makes us trans-cultural.
Education is not restricted to any culture and neither does education changes with different culture. Education means knowledge and it is universal. It teaches us to be appreciative of varied cultures, enrich our own culture and enlighten our minds. Education improves our tolerance level and makes us trans-cultural. It tells us that every culture has the right to survive and live in this world; one should be open minded and not narrow minded.
Education gives us survival.
The moot point of economic survival in this world rests on money. Education equips up to earn money when we leave academic learning and begin the real journey of life. The chances of someone getting hired and promoted is more with an educated person and not with an uneducated one. After recession, an educated person has a higher chance of getting employed again than the uneducated counterpart.
Of course, to argue, you can say that Bill Gates is a college dropout and look where he is today. I would say that education is not limited to degrees and rote learning, never. Bill Gates used knowledge, resourcefulness and survival skills endowed via education to reach top position.
For Healthy Lifestyle.
In a global scenario plagued with health problems, certain researches suggest that people who have graduate and post graduate education are less likely to suffer from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. While the scientific basis of this claim is not yet proven, medical people believe in this. A better health means an improvement in the quality of life.
It Enlightens us.
One of the basic facets of measuring quality of life is knowledge and humans gain knowledge via education. Knowledge is enlightening and thus, education plays a prime role in this enlightenment. Knowledge begets knowledge. There is no end to self-improvement. A knowledgeable person is revered and respected. Knowledge is universal and omnipotent.
Education trumps all! It is a significant contributor towards improving our quality of life.
For a child, education begins from home and then continues in a school setting. The academic years in the life of any child is formative and should never be compromised. More than academic learning, education teaches the child to observe, understand and comprehend. It teaches to act sanely, makes the learner resourceful, helps to develop skills and learn more about the thing called ‘life’ so that when the child grows up, he/she uses the education to build a better quality of life.
