In Defence of Education
I write this after witnessing the Pienaar Graduates Movement which surprisingly enough I was not invited to. As an unemployed graduate myself, I stand in solidarity with the movement and herein is my contribution to it.
A graduates movement which seeks to help find employment for the large majority of tertiary graduates is a movement that should be perceived, in my opinion, as a movement which also seeks to protect the status of education in our communities. The promise of a better life through education has taken a position worse than that of a political promise. It has, in the experience of most of us long time graduates, become a religious rhetoric wherein we expect that our degrees will possibly bring us success and a better life in the afterlife. Young people in our communities no longer pursue education out of the certainty that it will help improve their livelihoods. They rather pursue it out of faith. The experience from their older brothers and sisters who have long graduated from Universities and yet still struggling to put food not only on the table but also in their own mouths has made them sceptical about the value of education.
This then becomes a social problem as we now lack means of encouraging our young to pursue education. Children have no reason to stay in school or to stay clear of negative influences that may deter their learning. It becomes difficult for us in the front to become role models because even though our actions have been exemplary, our lifestyles seem to have deteriorated. Even though our young brothers and sisters may want to follow in our footsteps, they worry that they might end up where we are-smart, educated and broke!
The future looks very bleak from this point of view. Education has become free and is slowly proving to be worthless. Natural selection will slowly weed out all the educated people from our communities in favour of those with a little-to-no-education as long as they have jobs.
The process will be as follows: young people will chose work over tertiary education; those with work and no education will become new role models; women will chose to procreate with men who have work/jobs; men with education but no job will die childless because they cannot afford a family thus smart genes die out with them in the long term; education and development will no longer be part of the programme as the new role models and those in power do not see the value of it; moral standards will deteriorate; right and wrong will be subjective as the motive will be getting money, as such the ends will justify the means. This is the society we are headed for, a society without any systems of control and it is rather gloomy in my opinion.
I am of the opinion that the value of education is not only in the financial returns that as of late has been the motivation of its pursuit for many. I believe that education adds value in ones life in many ways. It is through education that one reaches a state of consciousness that brings one closer to themselves. Through education I have attained a level of self-consciousness that ultimately taught me to look beyond myself. I have achieved a level of self-consciousness that has elevated me to beyond the physical limitation of existence reaching into the emotional, the mental and spiritual. Such consciousness can be elevating, but such elevation only brings one back down to social-consciousness. Social-Consciousness is impossible without self-consciousness. It is through the recognition of the self and the realisation that the self cannot prosper on its own that one becomes aware of the value of the whole community to the self, thus attaining social-consciousness. The value which education has for the self is only as valuable as the benefits it has for the community that houses the self. When education stops servicing the community then it's value is lost.
The youth of this country went out in numbers in pursuit of education so they could be valuable and respectable members of society. They sacrificed their youthful years of fun and pleasure opting to spend sleepless nights in places far away from home trying to prove to themselves and their families that they have the determination it takes to be leaders in the fields of their choice. They spent nights and days absorbing information and acquiring knowledge that they hoped would one day service their communities. They have exiled themselves from friends, loved ones and the familiar surroundings of home only to come back and get rejected at home. We need to, as a society, consider the status we want for education in our communities. We need to wake up and recognise the debilitating effects this unemployment rate of graduates has on the general perceptions of education especially in the minds of the young ones. If you look carefully you will realise that the unemployed graduates are more visible in our communities that the employed graduates.
The message to the young people who have been looking at me for the past 5 years knowing that I am in possession of a BA Degree is simply that education does not pay. They see me more than they do the other thriving graduates with the same degree who are cocooned in fancy offices in big cities the whole year through only coming home for a week or two in December. This is not to criticise those who are employed in big cities but rather to drive home the point that what kids see influences them more than what they hear.
If at all my words came out as intended, it should be now clear to everyone who hears that the struggle to free unemployed graduates from economic abuse is a struggle for all interested in preserving the value of education. It is a struggle for all who care to create and maintain a society of smart and educated young people with decent moral standards. If a movement such as this one is to be successful in achieving its core goal, every member of society needs to get up and show their solidarity with the graduates.
This movement requires the help of employed graduates in a position of influence to come out and show support. It requires parents who have struggled with the education of their kids to speak up and say "enough with this, is education the key or not?".
It requires young people who are still studying in tertiary pursuing their diplomas and degrees to get up and fight for the maintaining of the value of that which they will soon be in possession of. Otherwise why stay in University if at the end your degree will be worth just as much as a matric certificate?
The movement requires those in the teaching profession; teachers, lecturers and professors to rise for the value of what they are dishing up. Are they merely conveyor belts controllers churning out young people towards sophisticated poverty or are they adding value to society? Even the young kids in matric, in high school and primary need to put their pens down and say "we will not pick them up until we know the resulting end of this charade".
Education is hanging by a thread and it is YOU who has the power to save it. Take a stand for education today and support the graduates movement. All structures in our immediate locale must make the commitment to hire a graduate. Churches with young graduates must rise up and speak to the issue and commit themselves to hiring with pay, a young graduate to handle their administration and finances. They must add a voice to the struggle of the now and show that they too value education. Local businesses must commit to hiring managers who are graduates from the locale which they service. Schools governing bodies, and the management at large must make the commitment to hire graduates with tertiary entries of the subjects which the schools offers, as teachers and have them do the PGCE certificates after employment. If the whole community works together in this, graduates unemployment can be a thing of history and young people will be motivated to study further for their own development.
Once we initiate a solution driven dialogue we will realise that this has never been really a big problem after all, it was merely a neglected problem that became a social tumor. It should be abominable for a graduate to be unemployed in a community that values education.
Eddy Bhila
eddiebhila@gmail.com
Song Dedication:
Artist: Stimela
Title : Please Save The Child (See The World)
Album: Steam Tracks
Poem Dedication
Author: Eddie Bhila
Title: A Graduates Lamentation
Book: The Black Chronicles: The Social Experience
