Why is education important?

1. Imagine girls who are not allowed to go to school just because they are girls.
2. Imagine abandoned children or demobilized boy soldiers, with little or no schooling,
3. living on the street, without work or safe shelter.
4. Imagine sick babies, dying because their mothers cannot read the prescription on the
5. medicine bottle, or a farmer, losing his ancestral land because he cannot read the legal
6. documents.
7. Basic education is, and always has been, the key to freedom from subjugation, fear and
8. want. Education is an effective weapon to fight poverty. It saves lives and gives people
9. the chance to improve their lives. It gives people a voice. And it increases a nations'
10. productivity and competiveness, and is instrumental for social and political progress.