Dear Readers,
It is a foregone conclusion that education and healthcare are interlinked and are two main pillars in achieving sustainability. People around the world have recognized that current economic development trends are not sustainable and that public awareness, education, and training are keys to moving society toward sustainability.
A key point to remember is the understanding of the terms ‘education about sustainable development’ and ‘education for sustainable development’. The first is an awareness lesson or theoretical discussion. The second is the use of education as a tool to achieve sustainability. Education helps generate awareness towards one’s own healthcare and that of others. An aware society is capable of eliminating many basic obstacles to primary healthcare, thus helping the government to identify the more critical areas of healthcare expenditure, by taking care of primary issues on their own. This leads to evolution of society towards development and progress. Hence education has to be at the core of sustainable development as this alone promises to make the world more livable for the present as well as for future generations. This was understood by our Government way back when India achieved independence. Policies were made to attain 100 percent literacy and offer primary healthcare to all.
Yet after nearly seven decades, we are nowhere near the perceived goal. Deep rooted corruption at the implementation level and apathy of businesses towards social inclusiveness were at the root of ineffective implementation and dismal results. Indians have been making a mark globally in every field yet despite this, we see many shortcomings in every aspect of life in the Indian populace. The reason is not lack but the growing apathy of the ones in power where the only objective is to serve themselves and letting the majority languish in darkness, poverty and ill-health. It is time the government and enterprises, along with like minded individuals, organisations and groups, come together to invest and make education and healthcare programmes work.
Surely the work is humongous and multilevel. To achieve and sustain results, every section of the society has to come forward and work together and share their knowledge and expertise in a way that there is a participative involvement in taking the community forward towards achieving the developmental goals.