Over the years, countries have emphasised the importance of education to improve lifestyles and foster peace and security. Without proper education, an individual will lack the academic knowledge and the basic etiquettes, values, decency, communication skills, and adequate code of conduct.
Education enables one individual to understand a problem and resolve the conflicts effectively. According to James Wilson of Allessaywriter.com, education is the best weapon to change the world for good.
Education creates a conducive environment that allows people from diverse communities to connect – socially, emotionally, and intellectually. No human civilisation can progress without the proper education of universal peace and the importance of living in harmony.
The Role of Education in Promoting Peace
Allows people to gain knowledge and learn skills and values crucial for developing a country. However, violence is the biggest challenge that the world is fighting nowadays. The rise of radicalism, hatred towards minorities, weapon use, and extremism are some of the difficulties posing a severe threat to peace, prosperity, and solidarity worldwide.
Humanity today faces challenges in the form of racism, security threats, conflicts between communities, violence between countries and ethnic groups, the economic gap between the rich and the poor, violation of human rights, and environmental degradation. These issues block development and deeply affect peace and security.
Education is critical to learn about diverse cultures and religions and develop values and tolerance to live peacefully in a world dominated by diversity. It allows people to interact and discuss values and attitudes to promote peace and harmony between humans, nations, and the world as a whole.
Promotes peacebuilding and stabilises social consistency. We need quality to progress, abolish poverty, and inequality in communities. It is the best way the next generation will learn, understand, and develop social, cultural, economic, and political development strategies to enhance security.
This is one of the reasons why countries are working on developing goals to promote “Education for All.” However, governments and communities face unique challenges to achieve the primary goal. For instance, the lack of importance to education, unbalanced distribution of funds and resources, and the lack of norms to implement effective action are obstacles to peacebuilding.
Can Education Foster Peace and Security?
Violent conflicts among religious groups are the biggest obstacle to world peace. Children, women, and education systems are often vulnerable as they fall victim to violence and community conflicts. Radical groups and political members adopt extreme measures to cause political, cultural, social, and religious disruptions. They use undemocratic and violent actions to achieve their primary objective – unrest in communities.
Education has emerged as an actual defendant to peace and security in all political, social, and religious unrest cases. It imparts skills and values necessary for a nation’s overall development and peace. The Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) aims to maintain equality and provide quality education while encouraging lifelong learning.
The main objective of the SDG is to make sure all learn to gain the required skills and knowledge for promoting sustainable development, sustainable lifestyle, gender quality, human rights, promoting nonviolence, cultural diversity, and global citizenship.
Education Improves Peace Culture
Teaching the principles of peace and tolerance are two vital pillars of quality. Basic education doesn’t only mean learning about numbers and various literary topics, but also about values that are necessary for self-development, improving the quality of living, and becoming socially active.
Gives individuals the opportunity to learn, analyse others’ opinions, and develop tolerance and respect for human rights. Moreover, direct access to education isn’t sufficient for peace and security. More educational and awareness programs must be organised to educate people of all levels about the dimensions of peaceful living.
From learning about mutual tolerance to respecting democracy, diversity, and individual human rights, educational training programs can help world citizens to understand burning issues affecting peace and security across the globe.
Peace and security can only be achieved when individuals develop skills for sorting conflicts without adopting violence. Likewise, learning about international human rights standards and cultural diversity will be attained by taking a systematic approach. And all these can be possible only by the dedicated efforts of various educators, researchers, and every other individual in society.
For many, education may be learning about critical academic subjects or mastering different programming languages to develop various tools like a GPA calculator, online scanner, plagiarism checker, etc. But that’s not so. Education is more than learning about world war, arithmetic, or writing advanced codes.
Building peace and security in society will require educating yourself about others’ right to living and fundamental rights and implementing those teachings in regular lives. It will require interest, commitment, and a change in attitude to accept others – and that demands continuous effort. This is where the role of education comes into play.
Education will give you the information that you must apply to reconstruct the peace and security culture. So, considering the extensive role education plays towards peacebuilding, here are some points educators and strategy builders should consider while designing education policies:
- Education should be affordable and accessible, offering similar opportunities for all communities.
- Education should aim to improve social cohesion and reconcile societies
- Education and training programs to reduce conflicts and increase economic regeneration.
- Schools must address all political, cultural, social, and religious issues through education so students can understand and evaluate the impacts of violence on world peace themselves.
- Educators must develop a peaceful learning environment to incorporate what they learn.
Conclusion
Education is the most powerful tool that helps every society member understand peace and harmony and contribute to peacebuilding.
At the same time, it’s imperative to note that educators should adopt transformative teaching methods to engage learners and trigger interest in world peace and security.
Only with the right academic curriculum, equal rights and facilities, and unbiased and committed educators can students learn, explore, and develop new ideologies and implement them in every way possible to achieve relevant requirements.
