Education is more than just a light!

A great thinker who holds education dear to his heart once said: “A good reader will make a good leader.” When you read soundly, then you are on your way to becoming the greatest leader the world have ever produced. The benefits of education are timeless and nobody deserves to be deprived of this wonderful gift. For those of us reading this piece, which has been blessed with this gift, I urge you earnestly to make the best use of it.

The greatest problem rocking the advancement of many developing nation is the lack of a stable education. It is a huge problem because like an asymptomatic infection, the depressing effects are never seen until it blows into something that might probably take a life time to fix. Take the Boko Haram problem in Nigeria.

Poor education is what branches out to corruption, lacklustre leadership, tyranny, to mention but a few. Poor education is the mother of our woes.

When I was in primary school, we used to sing a song and it goes thus;

Parents listen to your children,

We are the leaders of tomorrow,

Help us pay our school fee,

And give us sound education.

There are two key terms I want to sieve from the song and they are “We are the leaders of tomorrow” and “give us sound education.” The former is what gives birth to the latter. Nobody becomes a leader without a sound education.

Today the educational system of most third world countries are not exactly what it should be and the big question we should be asking ourselves is that who we should blame. We all should be blamed. Those students that indulge in examination malpractice should be blamed. The parents that pay the fee for their wards to write their external exams in miracle centres should be blamed. That teacher that knows that he is unfit to take up the job of grooming the children for the future challenges but still takes up the job anyway, should be blamed.

 The government that has failed to provide the basic educational facilities and off course make education unaffordable to the common man should be blamed. That man that diverts the resources for the growth of education in an area into his personal coffers should be blamed. We all are to be blamed. But we cannot rely on trading blames, it is counterproductive. This is the time to really identify the problem and deal with it headlong. Our children deserve the best. Our youths deserve the best. Yes, they do.

Many of our graduates are roaming the streets endlessly today in search of white collar jobs and when you talk to some of the employers of labour they tell you some of them are not sound enough. But seriously what do you expect from a system (e.g. Nigeria) that keeps going on industrial action year in year out. And when they resume after an industrial action, the students are rushed just for the university to meet up with their calendar and at the end of the day you produce highly educated graduates only in papers.

We all have a stake in salvaging our various educational systems to its prime of place. We can do it.

I love you all and always remember this; Good success is the foster son of hard work.

Photo Credit: www.empire.edu