Is education a key to success to you?

Education is considered one of the powerful weapon which can be used to change the world. Indeed, I cannot agree less than that. This realization has dawned on a few people in Africa who have also refused to share it. The few who have shared it have not been received well, or they have just shared it wrongly.

Many people have fallen the victim of the misinformation about education. The pioneers have not been able to share it in the right way so that it can be accepted well by the recipient, who mostly are the students. This has not made them (students) believe that education, with a high probability, promises a better life in the future. This reception has made many students look like failures, yet in this article, I will consider them not.

Delivery of education is a factor that has affected the lives of many students. This has made many students, especially in Africa, to opt-out, since they were not able to shape up. One mode which was brought by the pioneers of education is where the teacher stands before students and teaches them the content of the subject, and then the students are given an exam. Well, this mode seems to work well for many students, but it has also sunk many students and shatter their dreams. The main problem is; it is the only mode provided by the ministry of education. I stand to be corrected.

I have a very strong conviction because I was a victim myself. I would consider myself as the most dunderhead student during my time. I would get nothing during class time from the teachers. This earned me a lot of canes from them, and education became the most boring thing ever happened to me. As a kid who will follow his mother to church every Sunday and the pastor was preaching that our God can solve all our problems, the prayer I would make was for the teachers who canned me daily to die. Would that solve my problems? Another teacher would just replace the dead one and continue with canning because I would still remain dunderhead.

My prayers were never answered, and my problems were even getting worse. My buttocks and my back were full of scars from cane stripes; meanwhile, my class marks were even getting worse. Nobody cared anymore whether I passed or fail; of course, there was no passing in my vocabulary. Though I was being canned, there was nobody to help me.

Canning was not a solution to my problem anymore, and I even got immune to canning, but my body getting scars and humiliation I was getting in school was now too much. Teachers and students were scorning me and became the topic of discussion. I decided to help myself if there was nobody to do it. I didn’t know how I was going to do that, but I had no option but to try. I started reading by myself from the textbooks we were given. I did that for only one month, and my grades started improving. I even decided not to go to school anymore so that I could get time to catch up on what I have lost. The moment I went back to school; I became the top student to the amazement of everyone. I finally found the solutions to the problems I had.

The big question is; how many students are out there who are not able to discover by themselves the best way to learn? The school where I studied, we were 110 students, and only 30 students got the quality grades, which would make them continue with their education. This means that almost 75% of the students left without them knowing where they would start. My theory is; from this huge percentage, almost half of them were in the best position to perform better if only the school fraternity would find ways through which they (students) can be helped.

As much as the government is rolling out Competent Based Curriculum (CBC), the government should come not only with how to identify talent but also how to identify the various ways through which different students will learn book work best. From my interaction with students, there are students who can learn best when they are taught course work maybe by an instructor (teacher), some would learn best if they study on their own while some would learn when the coursework is accompanied by practical. Others will be flexible; in all areas, they will fit perfectly. These are just four categories of students I was able to get, and I believe there are other categories out there

Education is very expensive not only in terms of money but also in terms of the time taken by the learner to study. Wasting these two important resources is not only a waste to the learner, but also to the government and society. This calls for the government to invest in education so as to get the very best from the education sector. It is better we spend a lot of money rather than living in a society where people are sharp but do not have papers.