What manner of education?

The so-called Third World needs urgent deliverance from mental slavery. The education we were given was structured to make us half-baked bigots rather than people with improved reasoning that would be able to move their society forward. Most of us who had the privilege of going to school walk with heads held high, and in fact way up in the sky, simply because we learnt how to speak another man’s language, the language of our slavery, with a measure of fluency. This knowledge has not affected our people’s lives in any meaningful way, and of course cannot, yet we flaunt our certificates and reel out the names of all the institutions, home and abroad, where we received these academic testimonials.

We missed the point of what education is supposed to be because our orientation was biased against us, and in favour of our masters. We came off with the notion that all we needed was a certificate that would entitle us to a meal ticket in an establishment. We are proud to parade the modern status symbols that our so-called education affords us – the flashy cars, costly jewellery, dresses and shoes, etc. Somehow we seem to have been programmed to believe that acquisition of these frills is our ultimate end in the quest for knowledge. Our education was not structured to solve problems of our environment, but to create a bunch of elites among the mass of slaves who would be used to achieve some goals that the illiterate slaves would not be able to accomplish.

Those of us who studied core sciences such as microbiology, biochemistry, zoology, medicine and so on are supposed to be real scientists who devote time and energies towards researches that will have a direct bearing on our environment. What we have instead are people who just go to school to learn the names of foreigners who discovered this innovation and propounded that theorem. Of course, these people made discoveries that would address issues in their own environment primarily, although most of them later had worldwide applicability. Our own graduates seem to be scared of thinking profound thoughts as if this is an activity reserved for some races and not others. The usual excuse some people give for this is that the government does not encourage research and discoveries. While this is a true statement, another higher truth is that most of these people do not have a proper orientation about education. There are certain discoveries or research pursuits that one will engage in that not even the government’s apathy can stop him from excelling. Any discovery that really addresses a problem of the society will definitely attract patronage, with or without the government. A good example is the problem of mosquito. I believe that the reason why no permanent solution has been found for the menace of mosquito is because it does not live and breed in the temperate regions of the world where most of the world’s real scientists are found. But suppose an indigenous scientist makes a breakthrough in that regard, of course, even the sky will not be able to limit him. If someone manufactures a bulb that automatically kills mosquitoes, every household will buy that bulb, and the factory that will be established to produce it will employ many jobless people.

Why is it that no technological innovation has come up to revolutionize the harnessing of the various resources derivable from the palm trees that dot our landscape? Many palm trees die with their delicious wine untapped because that delicate art of coaxing and tending the trees into releasing nature’s precious tonic brewed in their veins is fast going into extinction. Why would that happen in a clime where these palms grow in large numbers naturally without any effort on our part? Why would that happen in a place where the demand for this particular wine always exceeds the supply? Why would a sane people allow their best source of some natural enzymes and vitamins go extinct simply because they lack what it takes to galvanize their mental energies towards making their own heritage more attractive?

I am convinced that the unemployment that has plagued our society for decades would be a thing of the past if we could focus on economic activities like broom making, basket weaving, palm-wine production, preservation and bottling, zobo making and bottling, cane crafts, and many other things in commercial quantities and with modern methods. The raw materials for these products are abundantly available but our young educated people will not touch them even with a long pole because their education prepared them for fantasy jobs. Secondly, they cannot imagine themselves applying the same crude methods the ancients adopted to go about these jobs. A people who took time to plan their own lives would have come up with more efficient means of producing brooms in large quantities in the shortest possible time, refining and packaging local wines and other natural resources in an acceptable form even for export.

Currently, our educational system is in a shambles because we do not want to sit down and plan our own system. We feel that we must clutch tightly the pattern of education (mis-education) which the colonial slavers left behind. That is a clear manifestation of the slave mentality. It is clear that system was not for our good, yet we cannot discard it and go for something that can really serve our purpose. Of what practical use is it to produce mechanical engineers who cannot fix their own cars? What about teachers at all levels who only passed their examinations because of the now pervasive exam malpractice syndrome? We produce graduates of English, Igbo or Yoruba languages who cannot make correct sentences in these languages.

It’s time for Africa to embrace a new thinking pattern that will replace what we have got used to. We must learn to think outside the box and lift this bleeding continent out of the trenches. The place to begin is to elect leaders, not because they are from this tribe or that or because they have enough cash to throw about. Let leaders be chosen based on their understanding of what the real issues are. It is the duty of all those who know the truth to do everything within their powers to enlighten others until it will no longer be possible for a charlatan to emerge and occupy our government houses.

Nnenna Ihebom