“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family” -Kofi Annan

From an early age I knew that going to school was compulsory. Most of us, out of child-inherent obedience did so. Understandably, we were young and did not really have a clue of why we went to school. Perhaps we had to go because our parents went to work and there was no one to take care of us. Over the years we continued going to school out of habit without much understanding, in fact some students finish their degrees without fully understanding why they go to school. At school we were indoctrinated into seeing education as a key to a great future because it ensured that we could have a `proper job’, and this job ensured that we could sustain ourselves and our families. As a result we were always told to “study very hard”. That was the mind-set I grew up with. It occurs to me that our parents also do not really explain to us why we have to go to school even when we are old enough to understand, say when we are in grade 8 or so. Most of our parents also grew up and went to school during the apartheid era. They seemingly also went to school out of habit more than understanding as to why they had to go there.

It is indeed common knowledge that education prepares one for a career and possibly leads to a better future. It goes without saying that education remains one of the most guaranteed ways to have a better future and lays a good foundation to succeed in other platforms of life. American civil rights activist Martin Luther King, writing in a college campus newspaper, agreed that, “Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.” Assuming that this is true, our parents and teachers were thus completely correct in their assertion that education is the key to success; but that is only part of the purpose and need to be viewed as such. It is not and should not be the only conceived purpose of education, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Being able to earn an income is only a partial purpose of education and our approach to educational commitment will be limited if our understanding is only from that perspective. It is this limited understanding of the purpose of education that has made most students view school and education as a gateway to some destination. Accordingly, it does not matter how one gets to the destination as long as one gets there. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why most students only write homework just for the sake of not getting punishment. This is why most students do not study on time and when they study, they only learn a theorem like Pythagoras or about Marxism because it will be asked in the exam. What has been created is an environment where learning only takes place in order to know what one is going to be assessed on, and nothing else.

I argue that education is much more, that education should be much more, and that this concept is much deeper than we think. Education is more than just acquiring knowledge in a force fed manner and it is more than just preparing you for a particular career. That is, though the destination of attaining qualifications is very vital, the journey itself is equally important.

Education is about acquiring knowledge through learning and engaging constructively with what one is learning. But being educated is not absolute, humans are still imperfect. In a sense, this could mean that one can be educated and still do the exact opposite of what a knowledgeable person would do. For instance, you could have a medical doctor abusing alcohol and drugs knowing very well that it is bad for their health. Many lawyers have been found on the wrong side of the law. It has been said that, “knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, and wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” There is a fine line between going to school and really getting educated.

Education should not prepare you for a life that will be, but must prepare you to live meaningfully and productively in the current life. That education should prepare you to make informed decisions in the current environment. Ilina Das Ewen stated that the purpose of education is “to teach creative and analytical thinking, to spark curiosity, imagination, and love of lifetime learning. I see education as a lifetime journey, not a destination or a transaction.”

As a learner, you need to develop an intimate relationship with your educational journey. You need to commit fully to all aspects of your academic journey and engage in a constructive manner with them. You need to strive to understand every aspect of any learning area and to think rationally about it as opposed to just cramming it. Unfortunately, the current mindset of our students will certainly not be able to put them in a position where this thinking and reasoning capacity is achieved.

It is through understanding that it will become easy to carry out that school project, assignment, that experiment and to participate fully in class. It is through this understanding that you will find it easy to study on time and to put that additional effort in your school activities. It is through the rightful understanding of education that one can distinguish between knowledge and wisdom or between data and information. It is through education that one can differentiate right from wrong or facts from fiction. It is through this desire that you will enjoy attaining knowledge on platforms other than the conventional forms of learning.

Author Marc Prensky argues that education needs to place learners at a point where they can not only learn on their own, but also ask themselves the questions such as: “Who am I becoming? Have I become a better thinker? If so, in what ways? Am I able to do things I could not before? What is important to me and why? Can I relate comfortably to individuals, in teams and in virtual communities? Can I accomplish bigger, more sophisticated projects to add to my portfolio? What kind of person have I had to become to achieve these accomplishments? Can I make the world a better place?”

Lastly, education is irrelevant if we cannot harness what we have learnt and apply it in our context to address social challenges that we face every day. The value of our education is only realized through its application in addressing our social needs. William was 14 years old when he constructed a windmill from scrap metal. He grew up in a poor community of farmers in rural Malawi. In 2002, when the country was ravaged with famine and drought, William dropped out of school because he did not want to go hungry and at the time his family could not afford his school tuition. He was faced with a rather bleak future. In a TED presentation titled “How I harnessed the wind”, William said that he continued going to a local library to continue educating himself.

On one of his visits to the library, he came across a science book about wind energy. It was through reading this book that he became aware that he could serve his social needs through wind energy. He learned that he could use it to pump water and at the same time generate electricity. This seemed far-fetched for a rural boy who did not have resources. However, through his desire and dedication, he was able to harness the wind through the use of scrap metal and bring about positive social impact.

Africa has unfortunately been known as a `dark continent’ for numerous reasons ranging from wars, disease outbreaks, poverty and so on. This continent is facing many challenges. William’s story highlights something very important i.e. we are capable of dealing with Africa’s challenges through education.

“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think” – Albert Einstein

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