By Julius Peter Ochen
Education has always been a gateway to success by all who committed themselves to it.
Higher education guaranteed secured and comfortable future to our parents and forefathers. This is no longer the case in our generation and generations of children to come.
All we are left to do is undertake deliberate efforts in identifying and nurturing talents from where our children might fetch their fortunes from.
But more importantly, we must increasingly start grooming spirits and skills of business and entrepreneurship among the young starts.
Albert Einstein in one of his award winning speeches said “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction at our educational institutions have not yet entirely strangled the curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail.
It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.
Wiser parents must reallocate the biggest chunk of their time to discover his or her children’s best fit into this competitive economy other than looking for money to do what everyone else is doing – taking children to nursery, primary, secondary, university and hand them over to the world.
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. Isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t. We don’t need to go to the university to defunct that sense of fulfillment.
The richest people in town are business men, whose educations are perhaps modest. We go to school so that they employ us, well aware that there is more money down here with them, than in the higher schools of learning! Instead we return with skills and knowledge to double their wealth if at all we are lucky to be employed by them.
Example
Let’s take a case study: Ochaya completed Senior Six last year and scored seven points in HEL subject combination. He secured his admission to undertake a diploma in Procurement and Logistics Management in one of the Universities in Uganda.
Tuition fee is about Shs 1.5M and functional fees about Shs 1.2M per semester. Hostel fees within the University cost about Shs 1.3M. It will cost Ochaya’s parents about Shs 4M every semester to afford his education. And in the two years, Ochaya needs not less than Shs 16m. Ochaya is the first born, seen as pillar of the family whose education must light the future of his six siblings. His father is a primary school teacher.
If Ochaya enrolls for this course in 2016, he would graduate in early 2019. In the current employment situation, there is 70 percent possibility that Ochaya will roam “the streets” for two years before finding something averagely meaningful to do.
And if he is lucky enough to get absorbed in Local Government as a Procurement Assistant, given his qualifications, he will be earning about three hundred and eighty thousand shillings per month; tax exclusive. How long then will it take Ochaya to earn back his university tuition? What is the probability that Ochaya will be able to educate his siblings without indulging in corruption?
What if Ochaya risked his future by investing the shillings 16M instead of enrolling for the course?
Ochaya could choose to invest this money in produce, say maize and rice. All it takes is renting a 25-tons store, which costs less than Shs 200,000 in our trading centers.
In July and August, a kilogram of maize costs Shs 400. If he invested Shs 15M, he would buy 37.5 tons of maize.
In November and December, Ochaya will sell this maize for Shs 700 a kilo right from his store, earning him Shs 26,250,000. In December and January, this same amount can be invested in buying rice, at Shs 1000 a kilo. If Ochaya used Shs 25M, he would buy 25 tons of rice.
This same rice will be sold for Shs 1,500/- a kilo in April right from his store, earning him Sh 37M. And this is just one year; his fellows are still “walking the streets”.
In two years, Ochaya will be worth over Shs 70M and can now go for value addition, employing the entire village.
Why do we make things difficult for us and our children? Life doesn’t begin after university degree, instead it hardens.
The writer is a public policy analysis
With interest in politics