Thirukkural-On Wealth-On Ignorance-Kural-406

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The ignorant just exist like the barren land,
Which gives no yield to be counted fertile.

It may be said about the people, who have no education that they just live a or mark an existence, which may be compared to the existence of a barren alkaline land, that does not produce anything.

The person without education cannot contribute to any form of development. And what is worse, he cannot even absorb meaningfully the benefits of development. He is of no use of himself or to others.

It is no wonder, therefore, that after seven Plan-periods, our per capita income and more particularly, the “quality of life" in India is so low. The obvious reason is the absence of 'threshold" education or functional literacy, among a vast majority of our people, after even more than four decades of independence, in spite of the adoption of article 45 of the Constitution of eradicating illiteracy in 10 years with free compulsory primary education up to 14 years.

It was reported sometime ago, in the National Newspapers that, when Ms. Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, asked for the secret of the phenomenal socio-economic development of Japan, the visiting Japanese Prime Minister Kaifu replied in one word, “Education", which is 100 percent in Japan.

Even other asian countries like south Korea and Taiwan, which started with a huge back-log of illiteracy like us, a few decades ago, have done extremely well in their economic development, because their 'threshold" literacy is now over 90 percent. Even in poor and war-torn Vietnam it is over 80 percent.

Our per capita income in India is still in the lowest reaches of the universal scale because more than half of our people are illiterate. Illiteracy is even worse among women, accounting for the abysmally low quality of life in general, Kerala State being a single exception.