Imphal, March 22: Stating that education is the key to everything, from preserving one's culture and identity to joining the global race towards development, the KYKL today said that it is imperative for the people of Manipur to realize that the only way to go forward is to develop and utilize human capital, which is possible with edn.

In a statement issued to the press today, vice chairman of the outfit, N Oken said that right through out the history of mankind education has been the key to everything and added that it encompasses politics and economics.

However the people of Manipur seem to have lost sight of the fact that it is only education which can take them forward, said the statement and added that the recent fiasco witnessed over the common syllabus prescribed by students is a direct fall out of the failure to recognize the importance of education.

The errors found in naming the highest peak of Manipur, the wrong portrayal of the history of pioneering figure Hijam Irabot, the wrong information given about Imphal river, errors found in documenting the Pungdombam incident etc have all proved beyond doubt that those responsible for bringing out the text books had failed to apply themselves properly to the job at hand, observed Oken.

No errors would have crept in if only the guidelines of the expert committee had been followed.

Moreover no errors would have occurred if the job of writing the books had been entrusted to the right men said the outfit and added that if a review workshop had been held to review the work completed and if the finished work had been published in the media the errors would not have crept in.

The vice chairman appealed to all concerned to apply their mind to the task at hand and to make sure that such errors are not found in the future as education is the only means for the people to get ahead with life.

Education is only means to promote unity, said the statement and added that a war bigger than the one fought at Kurukshetra is today lying in front of the people of Manipur.

Holding forth on the importance of education, the underground leader said that renowned figure HG Wells once observed that the human civilization is about a race between education and catastrophe and added the developed societies and countries across the world have reached the stage they are in today because they have been able to realize the importance of education.

Every religious book also talk about the indispensability of education, said the statement and referred to the Bible, the Old Testament, the Gita, the Koran and the Granth Sahib as well as the teachings of the Buddha and Jainism.

Even politics, which is about governance is inextricably linked to education, said Oken and added that the pioneering work of Aristotle, The Republic, stands testimony to this.

The ancient Chinese civilizations, the Greek civilization and the Egyptian civilization were all due to the importance they attached to education, said the statement and recalled the contributions of Confucius, Socrates and the writings on the tombs of the Pharaohs.

All revolutionary movements are also based on education, for it is through education that people awaken to the need to free themselves and live as free people, said Oken.

At the same time, education has also been used by colonizers to keep their subjects under check by feeding them wrong and misleading information.

The days of depending on natural resources are no more, said the outfit and maintained that in today's age of the computers and IT, it is human capital that is important and for a place like Manipur, it is important to develop knowledge capitalism for the people to progress.

In 1975, only 47 percent workers were white collar workers while 28 percent were manual workers in the US, informed the outfit and added that this figured moved to 65 percent white collar workers in 1984.Singapore, which is only one third of the size of the valley area of Manipur is today amongst the comity developed Nations because of the importance they attached to education and to tapping human resources, said the statement.

South Korea is today one of the most developed countries in the world because of their five year Education Reconstruction Plan.

Giving more examples, the statement said that Singapore tied up with a number of developed Nations to bring in development and mentioned the Japan-Singapore Training Centre and Germany-Singapore Training Centre in 1978, French-Singapore Training Centre in 1983.The story of Japan need to be reminded again, said Oken.

To many of the people, Palestine may seem like a battle ground where the Palestinians have been waging a war with the Israelis for ages, said the statement.

However it added the Palestinians have not been giving the short shrift to education and added Egypt has only two percent of the universities that Palestine has.

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