Education for Today and Tomorrow

It’s every school-leavers huddle, when you finish your grade twelve, its either you are lucky enough to enter any of the three universities, you will have to hope your parents will have enough financial muscle to keep in you in a private college or that maybe somehow by some supernatural intervention- you will fit in the society. Well even if you thought of getting a job, I would say tough luck, especially when even the university graduate does nothing other than roaming the streets while his/her credentials rout on a sitting room wall. Year after year, month after month we cast dozens of school-leavers on the streets with no direction and little hope to a successfully life what so ever. Who doesn’t relate to this?

I need not emphasize the fact that Zambia’s educational system is a shoot in the dark. My assertion is that there is need to conceptualize and design the entire educational system so as to breed successful minds that are armed to address the challenges of the 21st century.

I would like you to tell me what Zambia’s education philosophy is? What is the conceptual backdrop to what kids are being taught in schools? What are we doing to prepare the kids for the competition that exits in today’s globalized world? I am sure you have no answer- my point exactly.

A bit of background to this will be to mention that at independence, Zambia adopted the British education system which was mostly designed to produce ‘office people’, the accountants, managers and lawyers. This particular system created some stereotypes which made office work look more special and the more hands-on type of work more inferior- little wonder this kind of work was left to the natives. Worse off, this system of education was created to address the challenges of 1950s, 60s and 70s and has not been adjusted since then. Today by the time a kid completes grade twelve, he/she is very ill prepared to face the challenges of ‘society’ as school leavers fondly make reference to life after high school. In the present day kids learn is Biology, chemistry and so forth; in my view, these subjects are very impractical and add little value to a child who wants to be a carpenter or a footballer.

If you want the kids to be well grounded and very knowledgeable, all those environmental sciences and a lot of math is only necessary until the kids reach grade 9. But in the finals years of high schools, we need to start preparing the kids for society. Let them specialize in one major trade. Let the kids choose what they want to be and train them to excel in that particular field and should you want them to have options, give them a minor major. You will find that this way kids will be smarter and more focused other than when you bombard them with a million subjects and expect them to excel in all of them.

The current education system is also biased to white collar careers, but one thing these so called education administrators forget is that not all kids are the same and working in an office is not everything. I wonder if they have ever heard of people like Muhammad Ali, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, Kalusha Bwalya and the list is estimable. I am putting across the fact there are other avenues of progress in this world such as sports, art, fashion, drama, film, music, the media, innovation, science, social work and what in recent years has proved to be a very lucrative career- preaching. The role of teachers or mentors should be to identify what a child’s potential is and develop the child’s aspirations further. By 10th grade, a kid and the parents will have to choose a particular trade and focus on being good at what they want to do such that by the time the kid completes grade twelve, they are al least ready to face ‘society’ because we would have equipped them with life skills. This is especially critical since universities and colleges are few and expensive.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have our own education system that’s tailored to suit our needs! It wouldn’t hurt to borrow from the Americans and create something called the Zambian dream, ‘you can be anything you want’. Let’s tell these kids that Zambia is a country of winners! It’s special to be Zambian! Let’s encourage them to be innovative, to enterprise, to work hard, never to quit- yes all things are possible if you put your heart to it!

A little more hope, a little more belief, effort and we are there!