By 1875 some 25,000 elementary schools for compulsory education had been established. In fact, a major reason why this modernization effort in education in the Meiji era succeeded was that there had existed a tradition of non-formal education in the villages throughout the nation in the preceding Edo period. Thus we in Japan have for long thought of education as an important part of the responsibilities of the local communities. The 3 Rs continue to be relevant today, albeit in a new guise. In this era of globalization and Information Technology, the new 3 Rs that we need increasingly in Japan are foreign language proficiency corresponding to reading and writing, and computer skills corresponding to the old abacus.
Education is indeed an area of highest priority for every country, whether developed or developing.
Education is the key to the nation building and development of Pakistan. A good practical example of that is a school in Swat, which I inaugurated last year. The school is situated at the top of a mountain and very difficult to reach. In fact, the jeep we were riding refused to go up the last mile, and we had to call for rescue. But with our partnership with this local community, the opportunities and conditions for these children will improve dramatically.