EDUCATED BUT NOT SCHOOLED... an opinion

Does the above title appeal to you? What do you think about it? Is it possible to be educated without going to school?

What if I say Christiano Ronaldo is educated in the art of playing football and Floyd Mayweather is educated in the art of boxing, does that make sense to you? 

You may probably view education as simply going to school and getting good grades. Of course School teaches you how to read, write and speak and open you to opportunities in life. If you want to be an engineer,
you have to learn to read complex materials so you can upgrade your knowledge in your field, you have to learn to write so you can script your researches. Now, reading, writing, and going to school applies if you want to be an engineer. What if you want to become a footballer? What course will you study in school? Sure you will need to learn how to read and write but certainly not the complex communication skills that lawyers need.

Re-define how you view education and re-assess your aims. Education is not going to school or having a mastery on how to read and write. School was built to be a system of education but as we can attest, according to a Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Nigerian Education system is a system of recycled ignorance. I can’t help but agree to that statement in a country where an average graduate does not know the difference between a CV and a Resume.

Education was meant to open your mind so you can explore the world and attain self-discovery or self-creation. With a system that encourages cramming and regurgitation of facts without teaching practical skills that would be useful in the real world, school has so far failed in the context of educating us. Recently I head the MD of MTN Nigeria said Nigerian graduates are un-employable. I can’t also help but agree to that statement.

I have observed that I personally learnt most of the things I knew all by myself. I am not trying to discredit school but if I have bring it in, I would say school was a distraction. I don’t want you to agree with me on this one but I want you to know that if you truly want to study your discipline and understand it in a way that will make it applicable in the real world you will have to study beyond the school’s curriculum and the problem is, your end of the semester examination would not recognize that kind of knowledge and so you will end up struggling with your grades.

The bottom line is, education is about acquisition of skills. So if you are out of school and you don’t have any skill to function in the real world, then it’s time to get educated.

Leave your comments...