Education is key to democracy: Abhijit Banerjee

Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee has said “[Irrespective of whether] education is key to poverty alleviation or not, it is key to democracy. [Education is fundamental to the] idea of being in a society where people can be full participants and have full access to the society’s resources and to their own possibilities.” Speaking at the 2021 Yidan Prize Summit, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor said “With democracy I don’t mean political democracy necessarily but mean democracy in a deeper sense of giving everybody a chance,” Banerjee said. “Education, even if it doesn’t raise a person’s income, certainly makes him a different person. Access to education is in a sense a fundamental block of how we conceive of a democratic society. In that sense the economic aspect of education is just one aspect.”