Education
is never a luxury; it is a basic necessity of mankind. It forms the building
block of any society. Any leadership that does not provide education as the
building block of societal fabric intends to keep the people small. Such
leaders want to mute the voice of the people so that the people cannot question
the leaders’ action.
The same thing goes for any society that provides a
substandard education for it citizens. When citizens stand with the illusion
that they are educated and in reality, they are only half educated, the society
is always in mess because no one knows his/her position in the society. The
common goals of society can be determined by greedy people where the bulk of
the society chase a common front due greed because the mind of the citizens
have not been nurtured to chase diverse dreams.
When
educational system does not allow for divergent views, opinions and
methodologies, the people become mere robots; they assimilate information in the
form of rote or committing things to memory whereas their ability to critically
look at situations and proffer solutions is lacking or deficient. There is
always a crowd syndrome; where majority of the people heads in a direction due
popular view which is not determined by critical evaluation or thinking. The
academic system is not a democratic structure that tend to silent the voice of
the minor, because the voice of minor that reasons out of the ordinary has
always being the catalyst for change (incremental or radical) through history.
What would it have been like if the status quo that the world was flat, which
was the view held by majority (taught by many schools of thoughts and vigorously
propagated by religious groups). It became a doctrine, spiritual injunction and
it even became legal matter. Now it is much more of luxury to say the earth is
spherical but some people paid dearly for speaking against the norm. Some
people held firm until the majority that was right were forced to reconsider.
Some people went at length to prove the doctrines and dogmas propagated by
majority are never right. That some people see civil disobedience as
treasonable felony is still an irony yet some people have paid heavy prices for
such dogmas to never take root but the human mind is always comfortable in a
zone where his intellectual competence is never challenged. It takes
surrendering one’s ego to really be able to assimilate a new idea. It takes a
humble lecturer to know that the note or hand-out he has been preparing in the
last ten years is obsolete to the demand of the present time. Theories,
principles, philosophies etc. can be borrowed from the past but they need to be
adapted to present need and situation. Whatever is in the majority now was once
in the minority. It was once illegal to be a Pentecostal Christian because such
group was in the minority. As a matter of fact the real name was protestant. So
the majority does not confer authenticity and that it is why democratic system
that confers the power of rule on the majority is at best flawed. However
democratic process provide a system of self-check whereby when the citizens
make a mistake of choice they have a means of addressing such error after a
certain period of time. Any system that does not allow for this jeopardises the
progress of the society; as such society will live in cycle of repetitive
failure.
Consider
when Fordism was first introduced to car production line. Workers had lived and
worked in luxury of time. One car was produced in 12hours but Henry Ford
postulated that workers could make such car in one and half hour. There was
outspread discontent, workers downed tool as it was unimaginable for time of
car production to have a turnaround of 800%. Workers were laid off, new
employee without skill were employed. Change is the only thing that is constant
by why do men resist change-because we are all afraid to lose our relevance. Cars
were produced at the rate postulated, thus mass production of cars ensued. Cars
that were erstwhile a luxury for only the rich of the society became affordable
to the masses. Assembly line workers who never dreamt of owning a car could now
easily afford one. Imagine if Fordism had not challenged the status quo. Assembly
line cycle was reduced to 1.19minutes from 514minutes. Only about a thousand
cars were produced annually before then. A society or a people remain small
when it holds on to a dogma that it refuses to amend or challenge. This becomes
a way of life when majority is a constituent of mediocre. Fordism itself is an
offshoot of scientific management (Taylorism), taught in Business
Administration in Nigeria but with no practical application. Fordism itself has
been challenged and upgraded. Education is not only obtained in the walls of
schools but obtainable by people open to new ideas and perspectives
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