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GENERATIONAL SHIFTS IN EDUCATION

So this week I got to just appreciate how things have changed and are still changing over time when it comes to how we perceive education. In the 60s when my mom was born, it is safe to say that education was not a do-or-die affair. There were only a few graduates and by the time my mom became an adult, western education was so rampant that those who had been able to go to school got white-collar jobs as soon as they were graduating making it easy for them to work their way through the ranks of the civil service and lead decent lives unlike those who didn’t go to school.

 When I was a child, considering the opportunities my mom thought she missed out on, she swore that she would do everything in her power to make sure her children were educated. So though my parents weren't literate, they pushed me and my siblings to get the knowledge we required to be successful scholars, they paid for tuition, competitions, extracurricular activities, textbooks and, etc. 

Agnes Onyekwere in Patris Radio 2020 the period of my dad's passing

Their idea was that we go ahead to get good grades and then it would be our ticket to a good job which we’ll use to live good lives but boom! The tables turned once again. After going to school, and graduating with a first-class, there was no promise of a job, no white collar job waiting for me; apparently it wasn’t only my mom who had learnt the tough lesson, it was obvious that every parent at the time thought it wise to send their children to school to secure jobs when they were done. Unfortunately, when we graduated, there were now too many of us to match the few jobs available.

Today, I am wondering what I would tell my own son, would I tell him that “school is a scam” or “school is your golden ticket to leading a decent life just like my parents told me?” 

Comments

  1. Mr. E30 April 2023 at 12:56

    Quite a situation we find ourselves in today’s world. This goes to show that schools were created to train people only to find jobs and serve as employees rather than be job creators. Maybe our curriculum needs to change to shift our paradigm.

    ReplyDelete

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