Please attend to our school public education as soon as practicable
Public Education System, a recipe for disaster if you get it all wrong. Signs of an ineffective education system include amongst others: uncontrollably high rate of unemployment, poor work ethic, weak managerial and leadership skills, weak governance structures and high rate of crime. In fact, all social ills and consequent societal decadence could be attributed to an ineffective education system.
It is important to appreciate that the colonial education system that we inherited from the British was meant to serve the needs of the industrial revolution. It served as a transformative vehicle from the agrarian economy that most African countries were at independence. We cannot fault the colonialists neither can we blame the type of education that they brought.
Besides, we had an option to reject it. There is no denying that western education served us well during the formative years of our independence when our population was even at a lower level. Soon after independence, there were more white-collar jobs available than there were people who could do them. There was thus, a need to put in place an administrative structure that managed and moved the economy forward and growth was attained. The administrators at independence could not brag of any college degree but could pride themselves with commitment to work hard and a willingness to learn. A willingness to serve with a smile. Our greatest challenge is failing to acknowledge that education systems should never be static. They should be deliberately transformed to be at tandem with the dictates of the needs of emerging economies. We therefore need to understand trends, and significant
paradigm shifts that need to be made and aligned to the ethos of the time. We should always keep an eye in the future. We need to always invent and project the future. Focusing on the present will result in dire consequences for many generations to come. It is trite to submit that our education is outdated. It is a system that was relevant for the early 70s and 80s. It does not belong to the 90s let alone the 2020s, but we are still here providing the same archaic education system for the industrial revolution. Our failure is in refusing to recognise that the modern economy needs new skill sets that cannot be attained through the current education system. The global economy needs a new education system. The advent of the twine: Information Communication Technology (ICT) and artificial intelligence brought a new and complete paradigm shift in the type of education that could serve as a vehicle for the new transformation. How can we fail to see such a phenomenal shift? In a strict sense, our Standard 7 dropouts were educated for white collar jobs. They look for clerical jobs where they could write or respond to telephone calls. All societies had some form of ‘school’ curriculum that was designed to serve as an entry point into society. Africans had structured rites of passage into adulthood and being productive in society. With the emergence of western education, African education systems collapsed as most African nations embraced the ‘superior culture’. This was to some extend a wise move as the ‘new economy’ needed western education to drive it. The new economy needed people who could read and respond to instructions. Foundational to the new economy was literacy.
I have argued elsewhere that we need to revamp our school curriculum so that it reflects the needs of the modern economy. Quality education has nothing to do with the quantity of subjects that are offered in a school curriculum but the quality of their delivery. Countries such as Finland have radically transformed their education systems so much that they continue to be leading the log tables for the best education systems in the world. Finland has even phased out traditional teaching by subjects and replacing them with teaching by topic. It is not necessary for learners to study many subjects at both primary and secondary level. What I also find curious is the fact that school lessons have been 40 minutes each and also eight lessons a day since western education was introduced in Botswana as if 40 and eight are magic numbers hence a variation of that would amount to a sacrilegious act of ingratitude to western education. I wonder if it has to do with the 40 years it took the Israelites to reach the Promised Land. We need to put our commitment to vocational education on overdrive. We can only be saved by vocational education where we are. We have a good example locally of the Zezuru people who pride in vocational education. The Zezuru are never in want. It is possible that the Zezurus could be a happy tribe contrary to popular belief that those who receive Western education are better off. The Zezurus specialise in vocational education. Instead of criticising them, we can learn a lot from this culture. A culture that has stood the test of time and has produced fine craftsmen. Our greatest risk is letting our institutions of higher learning to continue to produce white-collar workers instead of artisans. We need more artisans than administrators. Call an Education Pitso as soon as yesterday. Retool the unemployed graduates as a matter of urgency. *Shandukani Thubu Hlabano is an educationist