30 Day Blogging Challenge: Day 16
Day 16: Thoughts
on Education
I think that we all need
to have an opinion on the educational system in our country… in the world, in fact. It affects
all of us directly, in how we’re educated, how our parents are educated and therefore how much they make, how our
friends are educated, how our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren are educated... heck it
influences the future of the world!
So of course I think
that we all need to chip in the best way we know how as an act of service to
humanity and ourselves. Of course, I feel that we are entitled education much
like I think every person despite their social standing, race, religion, deserves food, water and
a place to sleep. You may view this as a slightly Marxist attitude but I think
it’s just… humane? That’s my international view which I’m a bit more flexible but
now with Mama Africa. Education is as necessary as water, without it things will never change. I know
that may come off as elitist or that I come off as merely privileged but, how on earth are we
going to tackle droughts and the like when we are at the hands of foreign
countries? While we are only focused on surviving, when essentially we need
long term solutions. Nobody really cares about black lives except other
black people. No one loves Africans but Africans but skilled Africans are always leaving the continent in search for
greener pastures and honestly, they owe us nothing. Not a damn thing. But if
there were more of us I’m certain many would stay and empower other Africans
and find African solutions to African problems without the factor of Imperials holding our humanity for ransom. Foreign involvement has left us victims… from colonialism until now. Meanwhile we’re the continent with the most resources. How is it that almost everything
manufactured has something from Africa in it? How is it that we produce enough
food to feed us all… but people are still starving to death? Why can our
politicians afford private jets… while people can’t spell their own names? I
know there is a huge problem with the distribution of wealth and it’s terribly
unfair, however our humanity will never be a factor considered by the greedy.
It’s unfortunately on us to educate each other and ourselves which can hopefully level the playing field.
I’m not talking about
cramming the entire contents of a textbook and regurgitating that information
into the world because honestly even if you are a teacher, who does that REALLY help? I
mean dynamic education with the aims to fix something, empower someone, equipping
skills. This is even more essential in modern society where technology is
taking over the world, where manufacturing builds economies and feeds families,
where we tackle global warming which is felt the most in Africa countries while
we contribute the least to it. We still suffer at the hands of neo-colonialism, gripping at each of our throats. Imperial countries take our resources then restrict us from learning to work with them ourselves and proceed to sell them back
to us at inflated prices. Doesn’t that sound like exploitation to you? Doesn’t
that sound like what's making us poor ad vulnerable, even just looking at it mathematically?
And don’t get me wrong, I blame our black Presidents too, those who take funds
allocated to empower us to buy expensive cars and take a tax-funded trip
around the globe. I mean they could build structures that could feed us,
empower us, educate us for generations but yeah, that trip to Dubai is worth
more, right? We’ve gotten to deal with poverty thinking election after election and
every election they refuse to give up their power to someone who actually cares
and turn into the same dictators and colonizers they worked so hard to “save”
our country from.
Millennials are
blamed for anything and everything while we don’t REALLY have the power to DO anything! We have
melting ice caps, we have people CURRENTLY dying of starvation in South Sudan in one of the worst drought we've seen in generations,
we have police brutality and civil unrest in Zimbabwe and while most of us are
working so hard just to be able to be able to put food on our tables by
ourselves. We have problems and the reality is that we have to provide
solutions because when all the baby boomers are dead, we’re the ones left to
deal with this world, with this Africa. There are all kinds of courses offered online
which is one of the privileges of living in the 21st century and I
know we’re all working, but if we all do our part, our capable part at making
this continent and world a better place. The beauty in this destruction is
that it is a path to transformation. We’re all different, each corner of the
continent needs its own solutions and if we all empower ourselves we’re more
than capable at fixing the world.
The painful reality is that its time we stopped blaming the international community for exploiting us and actually did something about it. I think it is definitely up to us, the younger generation, to implement change. Unfortunately us as millennials are tasked with cleaning up the mess that was colonialism and now this dependency on foreign aid and assistance to manage our own resources. Another major problem which hinders development is simply corruption. If we had the right people in power we would have a better shot at effectively managing our resources. Mismanagement of resources is one of our major downfalls and this is brought on by, you guessed it, corrupt leaders and in addition a lack of knowledge.Corruption is a major issue in several African countries despite there being young people or individuals who are willing and trying to implement change.Leaders need to abandon this mindset of "how will I benefit from this power" and so I think a radical shift in mindset is required. It may be late for our older leaders but we still have time to emphasise the concept of development, and the idea of working for the greater gain of the community, nationally or otherwise, on our youth who will essentially be our future leaders. We need the youth to understand the significance of developing our continent and the benefits this would bring. If this shift in mindset were to occur, a greater number of people would be on " the same page" about continental development and would be more passionate about accomplishing this vision. They essentially would become drivers or champions of change. I think this can be accomplished by encouraging African development studies in our education systems, advocacy on continental development and providing scholarships specifically for students who have a passion or interest in African development. These are students who would gain knowledge in various disciplines to simply bring that knowledge back home and put it to practical use in developing various sectors within the continent. The problem is however that it is a process which would definitely take a significant period of time to achieve, but the rewards would outweigh the pains of the lengthy waiting period.I feel without this monumental mind-shift developing our continent would be a monumental challenge. I have so much more to say but let me stop ranting:)
ReplyDeleteMight be late? They need to go and let us take over! Yeah I think so too,I actually want to write a paper on it, how to improve the education system so we can ACTUALLY get sh*t done!
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