Education – A Tool for Change

We usually associate education with academic knowledge obtained through institutions, such as primary and secondary schools and universities. Education can also refer to vocational training, where practical skills are obtained instead of purely academic skills. However, is education the equivalent of schooling? The answer to that – sometimes, but not always. As defined by Mark K Smith, education is “a process of inviting truth and possibility, of encouraging and giving time to discovery.”  Essentially, education encourages independent thinking and the capacity to act upon these thoughts. It is the process of making sense of this world through one’s experiences and observations. Though education is not merely a qualification or certificate, this is not to disregard the importance of academic institutions.

Schools can help inspire students to question the things around them and to seek truth. It is this sense of curiosity and imagination that increases creativity levels, and thus promote the development of innovative solutions. Ultimately, we would want a society in which people can be discerning and are able to form independent conclusions based on given facts. This diversity in thinking can enable better consensus between individuals because of the different angles from which different people see. InAGlobe complements higher education institutions by creating collaborations with humanitarian organisations, striving to raise social awareness and global acumen among students, and give rise to a new wave of humanitarian engineering. Hopefully, this can spark a collective sense of social responsibility and inspire them to bring positive impact to the global community.

The benefits of education are numerous. Zooming in on individuals, as mentioned before, education aids in our thinking and discernment. Since these are soft skills that employers seek, higher degrees of education enable higher chances of finding a higher paying job. This allows people to raise their standards of living and the benefits can trickle down to the next generation. Moreover, education helps make people aware and in turn be adaptable to face unexpected situations.

For example, sanitation and safe water would be ensured if the individual knows the importance of hygiene. One cause of children not going to school is parasitic worm infections, which has a higher prevalence in children. Walking around barefooted and consuming contaminated food and water are some ways that the worms enter the blood circulation system and gut, leading to anaemia and malnutrition. This shows how important hygiene is in protecting education, as poor health is a barrier to learning. Also, mothers who have some degree of health and nutritional education will provide their children with a healthier and more balanced diet, avoiding unhealthy foods and unsafe sources. This can reduce the rates of parasitic worm infections as well. These two examples promote the prevention of malnutrition and avoidance of diseases, leading to a healthier population. With good health, people are enabled, empowered and unhindered by preventable causes, allowing them to reach their fullest potential. Improved health is heavily important in lifting individuals out of poverty. And in turn, deparasiting is seen as one of the most effective solutions to keeping children in school.

Zooming out to the community, an educated workforce brings about increased productivity, driving the economy. The gains from an improved economy can be used to invest in other areas such as education, healthcare and transport. Improvements in infrastructure and amenities can increase the accessibility to schools, hence further improving education rates, leading to a positive feedback loop of growth. Also, the ability to form independent comments and conclusions can aid in political stability since people can discern truths and vote for people who are genuine in improving lives in the community.

By developing technological solutions that can aid in the education of children in impoverished environments, we open the door to equipping the future with the tools and the skills to better determine their futures. Due to the focus of both the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London, and Jaime’s previous focus of humanitarian work and engineering, InAGlobe has a special focus on assistive technologies. In the realm of education there is an imperative element of inclusion, not simply the enabling of basic education systems. Children with special needs across the developing world suffer from extreme marginalisation, and there are countless organisations working on aiding shift towards social, economic and educational inclusion of these children. Whether it is a child with impaired vision, an amputee or a victim of Polio, tailored technologies have immense potential towards creating inclusion. This is magnified when realising that proportionally, there are many forms of disability that are more prevalent in countries that cannot afford current assistive technologies, such as teaching aids. This can be either increased rates of cataracts due to dust or traumatic injury, or higher proportions of amputees due to landmine heritage. Technology can create productive agents in society and the economy, as well as lessen the burden of disability, if only they receive adequate attention from engineers and technologists.

InAGlobe wants to go a step further, the development of technologies is but a nominal aspect to its intended impact in education. By incorporating projects into the curriculum of higher education institutions where students become the engineers, scientists, mathematicians, technologists that build the world thereafter, we seek to create generations of professionals versed in problem solving with humanitarian engineering constraints. It will expose the technological minds of the future to challenges that will be shared globally due to the interconnectivity of the environment and of people. Moreover, the exercise of collaborating with individuals in wildly different contexts with different cultures grows the social awareness and global acumen of the students. Also, by including such projects in the curriculum, InAGlobe gives exposure to entities that work in this problem space that are often resource-constrained when seeking talent. By shifting our mindset through education that includes emerging markets, humanitarian engineering may become a mainstream job market, rather than niche. This is likely the most important aspect of InAGlobe, and it is the same reason that we are writing these essay series: to create awareness and understanding about the imperative of global collaboration towards the forthcoming challenges.

Written By: Jaynell Ng (27/05/2019) - Outreach Volunteer of InAGlobe Education.

Some links

https://examplanning.com/importance-of-education-comprehensive-article/ http://www.mheducation.co.uk/openup/chapters/9780335223510.pdf http://infed.org/mobi/what-is-education-a-definition-and-discussion/ http://www.cedol.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/28-31-2008.pdf https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/10-barriers-to-education-around-the-world-2/ https://theirworld.org/news/10-reasons-why-children-don-8217-t-go-to-school https://www.cochrane.org/CD000371/INFECTN_deworming-school-children-developing-countries https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/what-is-deworming-how-it-works-why-its-needed-5301325/ https://www.who.int/elena/titles/deworming/en/