By Abdulqadir M. Habeeb
“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today”. – Malcolm X
Education is a significant step in life which refines the crude human and makes a gem of them. Education is a form of learning that’s intended to make supernatural out of the ordinary. It is, as John Dewey put it, a social process – ‘a process of living and not a preparation for future living’. Such education is: Deliberate and hopeful. It is learning we set out to make happen in the belief that people can ‘be more’ informed, respectful and wise. It is a process of inviting truth and possibilities.
As the world moves ahead, education becomes an imperative endeavour without which a human value is demeaned. As the age of industrial revolution ends, education is the crude on which most of the world’s economy runs and would continue to run. Education isn’t solely a classroom-based effort but rather gleaning of learning as we go through life.
One of the biggest mistakes we make as Africans is benchmarking education solely based on the yardstick of others. Education is a fluid system by which knowledge and experience are gleaned.
Many deem as illiterates our local population who cannot read nor write in English but are vast in Ajami, Arabic and other languages ditto for those with religious knowledge. So long a person can read and write in a language, or are learned in their religious doctrines they are literate and can be educated to any level with the right resources. One of the draw-backs for Africa is our attitude to education. It is seen as only a meal ticket, a means to an end rather than a holistic life journey which should illuminate our entire thinking process, affect our action, reactions and interactions.
Education is the crude of the postindustrial era; that’s why most developed economies prioritise wholesome education for their citizens from primary to tertiary level. We have to play catch-up as individuals and as a nation as we have been left years behind. We need to understand it in the future. Every aspect of life is being improved on, from the mundane to the exotic. We need to rethink our modes of learning, guide and orientate the young ones based on their strengths and weaknesses to choose courses of learning based on aptitude and not a seeming prestige or any dispensable considerations. And we must strive to earn skills relevant to the 21st-century workplace needs.
As young adults, Beyond Tertiary education, we need to work on our education’s essence by ensuring it transforms for the better. It should impact monumentally on our lives, our environment, our society and impact the forthcoming generations. We also have to ensure to develop our Emotional Quotient (EQ) to be able to fit in amongst the refined and productive members of our industries and society at large. We have to understand that education has no boundaries anymore, and it’s an all-encompassing process that would be the bedrock of our sojourn here and legacy beyond our stay.
The fad mantra of “who school help” is as much an affront on progressiveness as much as it is an indictment on the behaviour and prosperity of the genuinely educated amongst us, it is a call to action to ensure our society value education by improving our labour laws and improve wages to arrive a pay that guarantees a decent living and also for the educated to embody their education, hence become guiding lights in the grim chaos that’s our society.
Further, given a chance to give back to society, education, and human capital development should be amongst the first things we consider. Our human capital if adequately developed and harnessed could make our homes, society, and nation the Eldorado we all long for, whilst also exporting our ingenuity.
‘Posterity shall vindicate the just.’
Abdulqadir M. Habeeb, An ABUsite, a maverick student of life. A Cisco and Huawei networks Professional writes from Kaduna state, Nigeria. And can be reached on WhatsApp; 08160088421
