Why Education is an Easy Sell

I care a lot about education because I’m the product of education.  My parents sacrificed a lot to give me my education.  And as a result, I’ve seen numerous opportunities personally.  So when I travel around the world, I think in terms of the kids that I see in the slums of Kenya or in Ghana or in Nigeria or India and think about how we can make sure that these children have the best possible opportunity to do well in life. 

There are interventions that actually make a lot of sense in these communities that are happening. I think these innovative solutions should be spoken about a lot more because the situation in India’s slums is no different to that favela’s in Brazil. A lot can be learned as a result of that.  So the personal connection is quite simply that I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I’ve had the opportunity to go to a university and get on the career ladder and make the most of my working life. That’s resulted in progress for my family as a whole.

My situation I’m sure is similar to many, many, many millions of people around the world.  And in fact, when it comes education, most people get it.  It’s not a hard sell.  Education is important and it’s the one area that I would encourage everyone to get engaged in, because you look at all these global issues that exist, the world can be a much better place with an educated population. 

So whether we are looking at climate change, whether we are looking at AIDS, whether we are looking at war and conflict, the stem of it comes into making sure that people are educated.  And by that I mean read and write and understand and have an opinion on things, which I think it needs to be more sophisticated to make sure that we overcome these challenges that humanity faces. 

In Their Own Words is recorded in Big Think’s studio.

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