In about two months, I will finally graduate from University. My Bachelor thesis is complete, and I am by the look of things, all set to wear the gown. And so it is that my thoughts, like for every other graduate, have turned to life beyond the lecture room, beyond University.
What is the right education for African children? Photo by Ean254, Pixabaylink
In my country, 87% of the youth graduates are unemployed. Every year over 700,000 young people graduate from institutions of higher learning. And only 90,000 of them get employed. Going by those stats, my odds of getting employed are obviously not good. It is the same for thousands other graduates.
But first, putting that stark reality aside, and putting all factors constant, I find myself reflecting on several questions which, whereas informed by my personal experience and expectations, in the wider context, concern the education of children in Africa and the philosophy exercised.
As I get to graduate, my first hope is to get employed. It is the reason I went to school! It is the reason an African child goes to school. But am I going to get employed? The odds, I have already insinuated, are not in my favor. So I might just as well conclude that I won’t get employed, at least not so soon after graduation.
Speaking of how soon or how later I will get employed, in the post-colonial days, and our old men make sure to retell of them to contrast the olden days glories with the present day glooms, an African child would study with a job waiting for him or her. “Those days you didn’t look for employers, employers looked for you!”
So employment was a guarantee. Very few of us were educated compared to the number of jobs available following the withdrawal of the colonial administrations. But of course that was ‘those days’. The reality of the present day is that you don’t only have to look for employers, there are no employers to look for! Africa’s employment industry is saturated. The openings are few, yet the candidates are loitered everywhere. But that is only half the story. The other half is that there is a skills mismatch between what the industry requires and what the education system annually avails.
This raises some questions in my own regard. Has my education, my training prepared me to add value to my community, to work for its betterment? Are my skills requisite and consistent to the demands of the employment industry? What kind of education have I gone through? Is it the right education? What is the right education for me, for an African child?
One of my quarrels with Africa’s education system is that it has failed to evolve from the British colonial system of the post-independence 1960s. We are still training court clerks, lawyers and office messengers in an Industrial age. That said, what is the right education for today’s African child? The answer is just about unorthodox, but I trust it is the correct answer?
A classic case of a correct diagnosis, but of a wrong prescription
For a child in Africa, Education is the key. That much is true. It is the best path out of poverty. The best path out of mediocrity, for you, and for your family. But does everyone believe so? The answer is no. Some parents – and with good reason - deliberately refuse to ‘waste’ their meager resources on educating children. Widespread unemployment has made sure of that. What difference does it make to educate a child and after he graduates, you still have to feed him because he is unemployed?
One of the strongest arguments against education that you will hear today among young people in my country is that - “Getting education does not mean that you will get employed!” Accordingly, there is no need for education. Honest to say, this is a classic case of a correct diagnosis, but of a wrong prescription!
As it is, educating a child in Africa, by the time he or she has graduated, leaves the family poorer than it was at first. The costs involved, for most peasant families, to educate a child from primary through secondary to University especially, mean that the family has to sell off land and if you are not careful, every other of its material possession, including acquiring some debts…..the hope of course is that the child upon graduating and getting a job in the city, will reimburse the loan!
Imagine the frustration, the tragedy when that child, upon graduating returns home unemployed. Wasted years for him, and for the family, wasted resources. And now you have to feed him again, and if he is a male child, even marry for him a wife! His education has not only doomed him, it has doomed the family.
But has it? That is where the ball returns to the education system. What kind of education is it giving our children? Is it the right education? What is the right education for an African child? What must the right education do? It is such a difficult question to address, however, in the context of the African continent, I am hell bent to opine that:
The right education must not guarantee that our children get employment. The right education must guarantee that they can survive without employment.
Why do I say so? The first obvious reason is that not everyone can be employed at the same time. With the population explosion in Africa, that is not even a mathematical possibility. But this doesn’t mean that parents should not send their children to school. What it means is that our education system, its philosophy and psyche must evolve to appreciate the fact that as a continent, Africa, like the bulk of the third world, lives in the ‘product age’ rather than the ‘service age’.
If you have an education system that graduates 1000 hoteliers annually, in a country with less than 200 reputed hotels whose primary customers are foreigners, there is a problem.
So there you have it. Now as I count down the clock to my graduation, unlike most other graduates, I am not wondering if my education guarantees me employment. I am wondering whether my education guarantees I can survive without employment.Academic obedience
Sometime ago, i returned home, and found a young boy, my neighbor’s son playing hide and seek with a caterpillar. Now I am this person who is averse, and I mean, really averse to caterpillars. They freak me out. So you can trust what I did next.
“Don’t play with that thing!” I snapped, “Why:” the little boy almost simultaneously answered, catching me off guard. Yes, why? I mean, truth to say, the real reason is that I don’t like caterpillars. But how was that a reason good enough, or indeed a reason at all? After a moment of recollecting myself, I calmly asked the little boy which school he went to. I was impressed.
That school was giving him the right education; the kind that teaches children to ask why? This is more than most African schools do. Most African schools follow an indoctrinae education philosophy. When the teacher tells you to jump, you don’t ask why. You ask how high. When he tells you to frog jump, you don’t ask why. You ask how many times. That is the tragic irony of Africa’s education; we seem to find no difference between our children and the circus monkey, which can also be taught to do the same!
Academic obedience is the death of African creativity. The child who asks why, is disobedient, and straight away qualifies for lashes because of questioning the almighty all-knowing teacher. It is a mentality that follows from our traditional mindset where is demanded of the child absolute obedience to his elders at all times and under all circumstances. And maybe in the social sense it works, but in the classroom, it does not.
The right education for an African child must teach him or her to ask ‘why?’
Why do I say so? The first obvious reason is that progress starts with a question, not an answer. And then of course, every achievement we thus far know of, whether in the arts or sciences, in social or economic life, is simply put, an answer to a question.To be with, but not of
To some extent, I think that the reason Africa, despite being the cradle land of civilization, is still backward is because we teach our children (very brilliant by the way), to conform, to carry on our traditions rather than to break out of them and their ceilings and walls.
We pump into their heads one holy message: not to let the ‘white’ man dilute their culture, their beliefs and convictions, the majority of which belong to the 19th century School of life. When they get the chance to go abroad, instead of telling them to discover, and learn new things, new and better ways, and to come back with new perspectives, we tell them not to copy the ways of the ‘white man’.
Make no mistake; I understand the value of my culture/tradition, and the requirement for its perpetuation. It is the reason i appreciate the value of other cultures and traditions as well; the reason why our children must be encouraged to explore them, to influence or to be influenced by them.
Which brings me to the third point; the right education must teach African children to be with the African community, but not of the African community.
To be with the community but not of it means the children grow to know, to be a part of and to share in the travails of their community without conforming to its limitations, and restrictions. That is what Education that teaches children to be of the community does. “This is how we have lived for centuries!” This is what we have known for ages!” Granted, but how about what you haven’t known? How you haven’t lived?
Communities progress because there are people, who dare to cross the line; who dare to think outside the box; who question their status as it is; those who reject guarantees of the known for the uncertainties of the unknown. That is why and how Columbus discovered America. All of our known discoveries became because some men were willing to rise above their generation.
The right education must make sure our children understand this. They must be with the African community, but not of the African community. Because as it is, the African community is backward and primitive. It will take our children to think outside the box to drag us out of the box.
Recently the government of my country Uganda, a nation of 40 million strong men and women, the majority by the way, of which are young people, decided to import doctors from Cuba, an island of about 11 million people! This irony is the difference between an education system that teaches children to be with their community but not of their community, and that which teaches them to be with, and of their community! And so it is, that out of 40 million strong, 80% of whom are youth, we can still require to import doctors from a nation with ¼ of our population!