Education crucial for our youths

THE Government’s commitment to make education accessible to all children must be praised.
With the introduction of the “tuition fee free” policy, we have seen an increase in the number of children entering the classroom.
Education is normally the acquiring of knowledge and the skills that are accepted by a given society.
Education creates an enlightened society. This is a crucial prerequisite to nation building because the more people become enlightened the more they refrain from doing things that will endanger nation-building efforts.
The Education Department’s record shows that 210,466 students sat the grade 8, 10 and 12 national examinations in October and November.
Many of them are now at the crossroads waiting to see what’s next. For some, it is celebration as they close one chapter and prepare for the next.
Graduation ceremonies are also being held as the 2017 education calendar comes to a close.
The motivational speeches at these ceremonies will largely be forgotten by the hearers who will now be pre-occupied with what the future holds for them.
It is time now to give some hope even to those who fail to proceed to the next grade or university level.
Hope should not be merely in motivational speeches and viewed through rose-tinted glasses.
It should be more than that.
Only a few thousands of our children will proceed to the next level as dictated by the education system’s own type of natural selection process where the academically fit survive and proceed to another stage, and the rest are left behind.
As far as absorbing the thousands of graduates from secondary schools, the reality on the ground is still quite grim.
The number of yearly school dropouts and their place and use in society is a ticking time bomb and something the state must address. The problem is clear but the solutions are not so easy to see.
So the obvious question is this: What is the government doing about it? With a buildup of the masses in this demographic there are bound to be issues that society will face.
There should be an entrepreneurial spirit and a yearning in their young minds to improve their lot.
Today, we are living in a world which requires knowledge.
Education is crucial – it is not about machines, land and capital, but it’s about the human brain which is the most important asset to any family, community and nation.
We have to safeguard it and develop it. The quality of education determines the growth and development of intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and social behaviours.
Research, creativity and innovation are very important for future development.
Many of these young people who have grown up in towns and settlements – away from their traditional villages – have no land to return to if the education system has pushed them out.
They need something apart from land. They need to make a living with their mind and hands.
And the thousands of graduates who leave at the end of every year will have a door of opportunity open for them if they have been trained to think, generate incomes, save and spend prudently to better themselves and those around them.