A FAVORITE truism of public speakers about the youth is that they are the hope of the fatherland. Indeed, they are because we all have to die someday and the country, the planet in fact, will be left to our children to populate, develop and make something of.
It is, however, not that simple. They cannot be the country’s hope if we do not equip them with the necessary knowledge and wisdom to live more relevant lives than their parents’. They cannot be the hope of the fatherland unless we educate them towards that promise.
Education has been the road out of poverty for many. I need not imagine what would have happened to me if I didn’t go to school when I did. I know the dark places people ended up in who did not go to school for a variety of reasons ranging from poverty to plain laziness. Education has to be the leading edge of any nation’s stab for progress.
So do we really believe they are the hope of the fatherland or are we just trying to feel good about ourselves? I ask because belief should be backstopped by commitment to universal education. And this I do not see of our governments, past and present. Education has not been the top priority it needs to be.
Every time school opening comes around, the same problems hobble our education system... lack of schools and/or classrooms and desks, supplies etc. These annually recurring problems tell us we are not committed to educating all (it should be all including and especially the poorest children) our young to become the nation’s hope.
Yet we have all the money in the world to build inter-island bridges, super highways, 20-story office buildings, airports, container ports, etc. We also have the money to buy fighter jets, helicopters, frigates, tanks and rifles for the military. We provide food and hazard pay for our troops in battle. But we do not have food for poor children who cannot go to school and battle against ignorance because they have to help parents scrounge for the next meal.
Why do we have to resort to Brigada Eskwela and why ask the private sector to adopt a public school? We never ask the private sector to adopt an inter-island bridge. We also never ask the private sector to adopt a battleship.
By all means let’s have all those airports and container ports of which we have been judged to have lacked severely. But by no means should they trump our need for hard education infrastructure which we have so far perennially lacked. Don’t we think we should have enough of the latter if we are to make our youth the hope of the fatherland?
What is it then? Do we really believe our children are the hope of the fatherland? By the way, investments for soft infrastructure (quality education) are not on the table yet.