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When I was young and idealistic I had a poster on my wall that said:
Four out of ten, children, globally, will never enter a classroom; 250 million children don't learn basic reading, writing and math. In South Africa, particularly, we have an entire generation of people who not only had limited access to education but the education we could access was generally of an inferior quality. If we want to reverse this legacy and impact the future of our country positively, we need to focus our resources on education. With almost 40% of our population children under 18, this is no mean task.
IT WILL BE A GREAT DAY WHEN
OUR SCHOOLS HAVE ALL THE MONEY THEY NEED
AND THE ARMY HAS TO HAVE
A BAKE SALE TO BUY A BOMBER
That must have been at least 20 years ago but I was reminded of this recently while in a forum where we were posed the question, "Bricks and Mortar or People?" We were discussing the future of traditional education and whether it was more bricks and mortar that was needed or better teaching methods, in order to address the imbalance of access to education in our societies.
Four out of ten, children, globally, will never enter a classroom; 250 million children don't learn basic reading, writing and math. In South Africa, particularly, we have an entire generation of people who not only had limited access to education but the education we could access was generally of an inferior quality. If we want to reverse this legacy and impact the future of our country positively, we need to focus our resources on education. With almost 40% of our population children under 18, this is no mean task.
There are many people who are hungry for their children to now have the education which was denied them. So hungry that they are prepared to walk kilometres or sit under a tree as long as they have a teacher. while I am not advocating that it’s alright to run classes under a tree, I think that (if we have to choose) our resources might be better employed by investing in people.
By training more teachers to teach more children we’ll be approaching this problem from two directions – transferring skills and creating employment for adults AND providing education for our children. It's equally important to ensure that what goes on inside the buildings is what our children deserve. In some of the most deprived regions up to 75% of children still cannot read after several years of school.
Our children deserve a free, quality education so that they may realise their full potential.
Read more in this blog:
Education to Change the World
Our children deserve a free, quality education so that they may realise their full potential.
Read more in this blog:
Education to Change the World
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