Connecting science to society

BDU:One might wonder what an Ethiopian intellectual would contemplate when he/she sees a young Ethiopian rural student walking to school barefoot wearing torn out clothes and holding an exercise book.

What would education be for such a child who leads uneasy life in desperate conditions? And what can intellectuals and higher education institutions do to give this child an opportunity of a better future?

Needless to say that education is a foundation of development. Humankind had been introduced to different revolutionary ideas that have been hatched at the heart of education at different junctions of history.

Science has put plane in the air, train on rail road and cars on streets. Millions of people around the world have been brought to the shining light of science. The ever-increasing pace of information exchange kept connecting people in this 21st century.

Education gave birth to numerous cutting-edge scientific researchers that kept on perfecting human’s quality of life. High speed internet currently revolutionizing humanity’s communication in an unprecedented height is the work of education.

Some nations around the world enjoy the blessing of extraordinary prosperity because of education. High skilled and visionary leaders guide their people to a better future through the light of education.

Education keeps on revolutionizing how we understand ourselves and our own very world. This happens, actually, only if science is meaningfully and contextually connected to the lives of people in a society.

Bahir Dar University has celebrated a foundation stone laying program to set up a research and community service centre at Milach Ber, found at Yilmana Densa Woreda of the Amhara National regional state (ANRS).

The project was intended to help the community through providing them with contextualized scientific knowledge in relation to education, health, agriculture, etc. The university aspires to link the institution to the people.

The people were very excited about what the university is planning to do, and the people, including women and children, moved in a big rally singing their traditional songs and performing their traditional folk practices.

The president of Bahir Dar University, Dr. Baylie Damtie, spoke to the crowd giving them a promise that the university has now moved to their world to extend its hand to help the people in their fight against poverty.

Thanking Bahir Dar University for its passionate aim of helping the community, the Chief Administrator of the Yilamna Densa Woreda has expressed his hope that Bahir Dar University would realize its vision and bring the people to the light of education.

The torch that seemed to have metaphorically represented the coming of the people to the light of education was lit, and was received by the people with an incredible ululation. The people have enthusiastically expressed their happiness.

Some elders representing the community have expressed their joy, for Bahir Dar University came to their very community to extend its hands. The people were definitely in a state of euphoria.

There seems nothing as pleasant to intellectuals as extending their hands to help those people who are in a desperate need of improvements. Connecting education to society is one the sacred missions of higher institutions.

Bahir Dar University has courageously began its vision of connecting people and science through establishing research and community service to build a platform where rural people enjoy the blessings of education.