It is often said that education is the spinal cord or bedrock of an individual or societal growth and development. Education is a theme which every parent, individual and the society at large cast their optimism. Education is the process of facilitating learning or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs and habits (Wikipedia). This definition has strongly retrogressed my thinking to the wrong belief our parents infused in us that led to the porosity of our educational system.
The retrogressive belief of our parents, teachers and the community at large never stopped bothering my mind; they often preach the same method for all problems. They told us to go to school, read hard and make either first class or second class upper and we will be employed. After going to school, making either first class or second class upper; still, no job, they advised us to go for master degree hoping something miraculous will happen. After obtaining master degree still nothing happened. We were made to believe that education and the accumulation of many certificates is the assurance for securing our future.
Our parents kept telling us a single story of how Mr. John becomes a lawyer by going to school, they trapped our mind and blindfolded our vision from the acquisition of skill. They made us believed that footballers are lazy beings until Ronaldo and Messi become a football genius. Then, going into theatre art they assumed it was an act of casting one’s family name into shame. The system made us acquired knowledge without acquiring skill. They forced us to go to school where we were taught how to work for money and not how to manage money.
We are chained by a written paper called ‘certificate’ and innovatively challenged; we graduated from this system and went around begging for jobs not created by our fathers; we were seen as a beggar without choice. Now, the storyline has changed; they told us to start small; learn to collect twenty thousand for start and it will yield as time goes by.
Why must we always beg the system? Why must our parents continue to guild our destiny? Why must we always staunch our success in going to university? Now, the FG has declared employing 500,000 unemployed graduates as teachers and will pay them #23,000.00 for two years duration. The question is; what will be there fate after two years? I am not saying we should drop out of school like Bill Gate; Bill Gate follows his passion not just dropping out of school. We cannot continue to build our future on the same pattern and expect different result, let follow passion instead.
It high time we stopped entangling ourselves in what Robert Kiyasoki called the ‘rat race’ i.e get a white collar job; wake up very early in the morning, go to work, return late at night; build a house, buy a car, pay bills and die. Ask yourself what innovation am I leaving behind. This life is two headed janas, we cannot all work for the government, get a skill establish yourself and change your world.
Why won’t some anomic pressure group say western education is a sin when the likes of Lil Kesh, Olamide Bado and many more are earning big for speaking with rhyme and slang? Can you tell the numbers of graduate Dangote has employed and will still employ? It is not by the paper we hold, it is by the content we have.
Also, we were made to believe that farming is meant for the lazy beings who refused to go to school; now they are telling us to return to farm as way of reducing unemployment. Then, they told us shoe making, tailoring, barbing and other skill are meant for the illiterates; now, they are begging us to go back to it and make life out of it.
