THE VALUE OF EDUCATION? GONE!

• “...We now live in a country where the most brilliant student is being awarded with glass cups while glass houses are built for the most beautiful girls....”
• “...they want those who cannot survive themselves (teachers) to make Education survive...”
• “...How will they be motivated when they know quite alright that the best performance is motivated with the worst award?....”

When people say Education already lost its value and that it does not anymore guarantee one’s eventual success, some people who do not buy such idea may speak against it, but actually, I personally have seen it to be true, at least, to some extent.
One of the most painful things about this education of a thing is that, even the educators do not make it worth its value. We now live in a country where the most brilliant student is being awarded with glass cups while glass houses are built for the most beautiful girls. Our priority has totally drifted from the Education we see to build our future to frivolities that eat up our future. What a pity!

Please, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying Education is not useful; I am only trying to expose the fact that, Education is on the verge of devaluation - if not devalued already. It is crystal clear that a nation that doesn’t give regard to education is a nation that may soon flop because education forms the foundation for any nation and when the foundation is weak, what shall the righteous do?

Firstly, in order to make Education (especially in Africa) to regain its strength, it has to be valued more than other frivolities. We can’t keep giving 8% or 6% of the national annual budget to education and expect 90% improvement, it can’t just work. UNICEF recommends that at least, a nation should give 26% of its annual budget to education. Only then will Education improve from the economic angle.

Also, our mindset about education and educators has to change in order to adjust our mentality towards education. A lot of people see Education as the work of the poor people. They see teachers as those who can never be rich, even the government co-opts with this and decides sometimes to suffer teachers more by refusing to pay salaries. Imagine, state governments in Nigeria owing their workers including teachers salaries for over 6 months. They never thought of how these teachers could survive, yet they want those who cannot survive themselves (teachers) to make Education survive. That apparently cannot work!

Furthermore, those who are in the train of education, receiving training have to be motivated to do so. How will students want to perform well when they know that even with high performance, they are not guaranteed to get jobs? How will they be motivated when they know quite alright that the best performance is motivated with the worst award? How will they want to continue to learn when the society whispers often to their ears that the quantity demanded in terms of job opportunities is far away from the quantity supplied? When all these are addressed and brilliant students are compensated proportionally to their performance and they all see light at the end of the tunnel of education, only then will Education be worthy of its worth.

In conclusion, let us all come together as one to help restructure this education of ours. It is not solely the work of the government or some set of people, it is the collective work of everyone to communally contribute to the development of our education so that we will all share from the dividends of good education in future and our future will be worth living for.

By ADEGOKE, Ayodeji Solomon (nomoloS)