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Schooling nowadays is gambling like lottery
2007-08-17 08:50:01
By Christine Afandi
`Sure life can be hell sometimes` says a friend of a friend called George, as we reminisce about the days events while nibbling at our ice cream at steers, millennium towers.
I turn and roll my eyes because the chap is neat and well dressed and doesn`t seem to lack anything important for that matter. So why complain about life?
As if what I was thinking could be seen on my forehead George went on to explain that he cleared university two years ago and to date he has never landed a job.
He is an economist, Oops he was supposed to be an economist and graduated with honours from a top university here in Dar es Salaam.
He has worked as a sales executive, front office receptionist at a hotel and many other small jobs.
We all laugh at him not in a bad way and a friend suggests that he goes back to university and pursue masters and probably teach economics at the university.
George is bright and I felt intimidated by the way he could play around with statistics and analyse what portends for the current economy, all I could mumble to myself is `What wastage of talent and brains.`
George openly confessed that evening that the education system has cheated on him, it`s more of a lottery.
Off course he is not alone in this; millions of youths in Africa are feeling the pinch of unemployment and a schooling system that considers everyone at par when it comes to the capability to learn.
Speaking of an unfair education system Ivan Illich`s famous book, deschooling the society, written in 1971, is a worthy read.
All education students must be conversant with the author and his aggressiveness in pointing out what an ideal schooling system should be like.
I must admit I got to read the book because I thought it had weird principles but which nevertheless are food for thought.
Illich after observing society for sometime and undertaking a research he came up with the term deschooling.
Illich argued, quite radically that the society should be deschooled because the school has lost its purpose and mission. Yet we had to learn about deschooling in school.
Illich was a social thinker, a catholic priest who once locked horns with the Vatican. He died in Bremen, German in 2002 having been born in 1926 in Austria.
Illich argued persuasively that schools are a lottery in which everyone invests, but a few win.
As a result of perceived failure, those students who don`t succeed in schools are stigmatised and suffer discrimination.
In contrast he proposed to correct this unjust situation by deschooling society and thereby making it impossible to discriminate on that basis.
So why would we deschool the society anyway?
Whether you will score an A or an F, you pay the same for education. It is therefore true that we all invest a lot in education but only a few win.
Anytime school exams results are announced, only top scorers are given emphasis and awards while the failures are made to feel inadequate and embarrassed about their situation.
They are stigmatised, ignored and left to fend for themselves.
Is it not tragic that the society spends so much money time and energy taking care of those already endowed by nature through high IQ?
Economists argue that the high returns in education may be attracting counterfeits just like master paintings.
This perhaps explains why dubious colleges with sweet sounding names are mushrooming around town. Students going through such colleges are playing lottery, hoping they will get high paying jobs.
Illich was right in calling for the society to stop discrimination. The policy makers are beneficiary of the school and would loath to deschool the society.
I don`t think Illich wanted the school abolished; he wanted us to redefine its mission and purpose, away from a giant sorting machine.
Has any society succeeded in deschooling itself? In the US, top students go to the Ivy League universities.
Those who do not score highly go to lower tier universities divided into about three levels from the most competitive to the least competitive.
Each layer takes care of students of different abilities.
Either by design or by accident, the lower you go down the layers, the cheaper the school becomes.
Those who cannot go to university go to community college, which is open-ended; one can proceed to the university later on.
School drop outs find lots of jobs in fast food restaurants or in other jobs that can easily be performed by anyone of moderate education.
Incidentally school drop outs are shielded from the vulgarities of the job market by one language –English.
One area understudied by economists is the contribution of language homogeneity to economic growth. In the US, education is less of a lottery, every graduate at whatever level gains.
Schooling in Africa needs redefinition to give meaning, quality and purpose to life, away from endless pursuit of material goods.
Unfortunately we often realise we need deschooling after schooling.
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