The desire to learn is a remarkable attribute of human beings. Since their birth, they have the desire to explore and learn, and understand their surrounding and themselves. Such particular attribute in them has incapacitated them to accumulate a wealth of knowledge that they can use in different spheres of life. Fortunately, the boundaries of knowledge are not finite, and human beings still have a great deal to learn.
Using  their quality to discover more, human beings in developed countries have been able to bring about unmatched advancements in almost all the aspects of their living. Their knowledge and research are not only evident from their schools, colleges and universities, but also from their political and economic institutions. Even their daily lives show the nature of achievements they have acquired by dint of knowledge and scientific education.
Unfortunately, the people in certain countries, particularly, in the backward ones, have not been able to utilize their capacities to their utmost potentials and the result is that they are underdeveloped in different aspects of their lives. Afghanistan is also one of such countries; the people have not been able to nourish their desires to learn to their full capacities. Therefore, the need of time is to nourish the desire to learn both at individual and institutional levels.  
The first institution where human beings start their learning is a family. The parents are, thus, the first teachers. It is through parents that children start learning a language and form the foundations on which they construct the building of their knowledge. Parents prepare the children for what they are going to learn in the years to come. Parents, in fact, do not install the urge for learning within the children. The urge to learn and the thirst to know are already there. The parents only require to keep that alive; or even assist in increasing that.
However, on certain occasions, the parents discourage that urge and strive to install within the minds of the children what they know themselves. They want the children to be their carbon copies; copying what they teach them. The inquisitiveness, the curiosity and keenness that are the natural gifts of the children are thus spoiled in that case and the children become habitual of getting fed by their parents instead of searching for knowledge themselves.
Another institution that plays a tremendous role in supporting the children to learn is school. Though schools assist children in learning to a great extent, they can also be responsible for snatching from children their precious gift – the capacity to learn. Certain schools use the methods and ways that are not at all supportive in learning; rather, they discourage children to a large extent. The use of fear is one of the most dominant factors in such methods, and is highly responsible for killing the students’ craving to learn. Moreover, in colleges and universities, research and discoveries must be appreciated and the students who are willing to bring forth new ideas and concepts must be given enough space to move forward, so that their ways for better development must not hindered.
Teachers, at the same time, must strive to keep the students’ craving for learning alive instead of inculcating in them the readymade thoughts and concepts. Teachers must support the students in polishing their capacities to develop their own understanding, instead of making them repeat like parrots. They have the most important responsibility of making the students learn without losing the urge to learn more and more. They have to keep their tendency for innovation and improvement alive all the times.
We need to understand that the habit of learning keeps a person updated and ready to face the overgrowing changes of changing world. As, with each passing moment the universe is expanding and along with it the knowledge, it is essential that our people must never give up the habit of learning. At the end of each day a person must have something new that has been learnt. It is the only way that a person can remain updated and young.
For our people to keep on learning, the central concept is to consider that a person has never learnt enough. As the great philosopher Aristotle used to say, “I know that I don’t know anything.” It is the very basic step. The realization that a person knows that he knows not leads to true learning. On the other hand, the ones who believe that they are not ignorant and know everything, for them all the doors to learning are automatically closed. They, from the very first step, deny to open the vistas of knowledge to themselves. They are basically the blind believers who are unfortunately sure that they have enough knowledge, while on the contrary, they are the ones who need the most of it. And, they are, undoubtedly, the most ignorant of all.