06 – Ways Education Can Help in Overcoming Poverty
(Syed Manazir-ul-Haq, Karachi)
image-poverty
Poverty is deprivation of the basic needs to a great extent such as food, shelter, education, clothing, medicine and so on. Poverty is a branch of Economics - all the valued Economists in their ages have made contributions to alleviate poverty by giving multiple economic approaches and strategies. A person who is not in a position to satisfy him and his dependants’ needs sufficiently is in a poverty domain. In Pakistan millions of people are not only much poor but also living below the poverty line. The governments have been striving to alleviate the poverty by way of education, skill, fiscal policies and poverty alleviation approaches. Education is a basic tool to mitigate poverty. Six ways are given below through which education can help in overcoming poverty:-
1. Economic Growth: Education is an integral part of Economic Growth. The economic growth reduces the rate of poverty by increasing the standard of living. It is witnessed that the countries where the standard of education is low, people are living below the poverty line, whereas where the education level is much higher, the standard level of the people of that country is also much higher. They are well-off and leading better life.
2. Peace and Justice: Education spreads justice and reduces crimes. A society where education is common – each and every person is literate in that society, justice prevails and people are relaxed to a great extent; resultantly poverty is mitigated.
3. Equal Distribution of Wealth: Equal Distribution of Wealth is not possible, if there is a lack of economic experts in a country. The well educated country produces Economic and other experts who through their economic and other approaches try their best to overcome the poverty.
4. Inflow of Investment: Education brings investment from all over the world that reduces the poverty. If the people of a country are not educated, the affairs of the country cannot run smoothly, resultantly the flow of investment is much low leading to increase poverty. Inflow of Investment is much higher if the people of the country are educated.
5. Mobilization: Education keeps the society in action and in the long run the society becomes proactive and is capable to overcome the poverty by way of its untied labor and expertise.
6. SWOT: The knowledge of SWOT Strategy, i.e. Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats plays an important role to overcome the poverty and the knowledge of SWOT is impossible without education. The Strength overcomes the Weaknesses and produces Opportunities by combating Threats. This strategy also spurs spirit of self-reliance by way of essence of education.