If only you know the “why”…

Education, as I understand, is supposed to help find solutions to the problems that exist in our world today. Unrefined solutions, seated deep within us should find expression if an educational process were to be deemed complete and appropriate.

I was privileged to speak to some secondary school students on the relevance of education at a youth development summit organised by Transforming Africa Initiative – TAI (SCIO) at Otukpo, Benue State Nigeria. It quickly became obvious that a number of the participants see education as an end rather than a means to an end. What is shocking is that some of the students were willing to do about anything to attain their expectations or desired “end” (even if it meant going to do their final examinations at the so-called miracle centres). “Miracle centres” are examination centres where students receive active assistance during the course of their examinations; examination malpractices are encouraged at these miracle centres. As a result, for the rest of the talk, we dwelled on two important components of education – the “what” and “why” of education.

In the “what” of education, we concentrated on participants’ expectations at the end of their studies. I decided to explore why most of the participants were in school in the first place. Answers like “I want to become a doctor”, “I want to become an architect”, “I want to become a lawyer” and the likes were quick to come to the fore after I asked the students about their dreams and aspirations. Upon further interaction, I quickly realised that the reason many of the students have mentioned these very noble professions was not very far from the social status as well as the financial rewards that come with some of these professions. These are indeed noble dreams! However, I was not able to get my head round why a fraction of my audience who dream of attaining such noble heights expressed that they would be happy to go to “miracle centres” in order to get to attain these goals. It became obvious down the line that some of the youngsters, I was privileged to address knew, only one-half of the truth about their aspirations – they knew only the “what” but had only a faint idea about the “why”.  

It did not appear as if these students understand the reason we have, for example, doctors in the first place. If the participants understand that a doctor needs to be knowledgeable about human illnesses in order to function effectively, they would not consider cheating as an alternative to the hard work required in the process of becoming a doctor. This lackadaisical approach to education is clearly a function of failing to understand these two huge dimensions that there is to education – the “what” and the “why”. It is therefore, not enough that students understand the “what” of their education. It is equally important that they also understand the “why” of education as well. The “why” of our education relates to the very essence of education: how we could be empowered to solve the problems that confront our local environment. Education, as I understand it, is supposed to bring out the solutions to the problems inherent in our world, solutions which are seated deep within us and unrefined.