As human civilization continues to advance through the Industrial Age and into the Digital and Information Age, educational institutions continue to be at the forefront of such advancement. This is essential as human progress is maintained largely through education, discovery. As a result, I believe that education must be a lifelong process. It cannot be any other way, and is definitely not a means to a secure job. My reasons are that, firstly, as human civilization moves forward, we go forward with new knowledge acquired through discovery and experimentation. Secondly, especially in current times of economic uncertainty, the certainty of a secure job is increasingly becoming a myth and the ability to be multi-skilled is vital.
As human civilization continues to advance into the digital, and likely into a future Space Age, it will be done largely through increased knowledge about who we are and how we came to be here. It will also likely involve more humans venturing out into space, as we set our sights on perhaps colonizing other planets. In order to do this, it will require great advancements in the sciences and engineering. It will also require an unprecedented level of global co-operation, that can be argued, has never really existed up to now. These advancements through human knowledge can only come through people who dedicate their lives to advancing human understanding about the world around us, as well as further understanding of who we are and how we can better relate to each other.
Even now, at our current level of understanding of science, social science and engineering, people must dedicate half a lifetime just to get to the forefront of understanding. And then we must push forward with further knowledge and understanding in order to take humanity into the future. Thus, I believe education must be a lifelong process if we are to continue to develop into the future.
Secondly, with the Global Financial Crisis and the current Eurozone Financial Crisis, what we once took as stable is no longer stable. The marketplaces of the world arguably keep humanity going forward on a day to day basis, allow people to earn money in a stable manner in order to raise families. The marketplace is our means of survival. However, with the recent financial crisis, what was once stable is now no longer stable, and millions have been plunged into uncertainty through losing jobs, even losing their careers. They have then discovered they had no skills to find another job. The result is, in the current time of financial insecurity, everyone must be multi-skilled to increase certainty, and subsequently security for themselves and their families. This means continual learning of new skills, as well as learning more advanced skills as new technology is developed. Thus, education must be a lifelong process.
We can see that education must be a lifelong process. Because if not, we will find that humanity cannot advance into the future, and that we no longer have certainty for the present time.