A new perspective on how you understand education

       Education, or learning, is not necessarily that routinized curriculum and those classified subjects in textbooks which youths are forced to learn during specified hours while sitting in rows of desks. This type of education now prevailing all over the world is directed against human freedom. State controlled education, which governments boast of whenever they are able to force it on their youths, is a method of suppressing freedom. It is a compulsory obliteration of a human being's talent, as well as a coercive directing of a human being's choices. It is an act of dictatorship destructive of freedom because it deprives people of their free choice, creativity and brilliance. To force a human being to learn according to a set curriculum is a dictatorial act. To impose certain subjects upon people is also a dictatorial act.
       State-controlled and standardized education is, in fact, a forced stultification of the masses. All governments which set courses of education in terms of formal curricula and force people to learn those courses coerce their citizens. All methods of education prevailing in the world should be destroyed through a universal cultural revolution that frees the human mind from curricula of fanaticism which dictate a process of deliberate distortion of man's tastes, conceptual ability and mentality.
        This does not mean that schools are to be closed and that people should turn their backs on education, as it may seem to superficial readers. On the contrary, it means. that society should provide all types of education, giving people the chance to choose freely any subjects they wish to learn. This requires a sufficient number of schools for all types of education. Insufficient numbers of schools restrict human freedom of choice, forcing them to learn only the subjects available, while depriving them of the natural right to choose because of the unavailability of other subjects. Societies which ban or monopolize knowledge are reactionary societies which are biased towards ignorance and are hostile to freedom. Societies which prohibit the teaching of religion are reactionary societies, biased towards ignorance and hostile to freedom. Societies which monopolize religious education are reactionary societies, biased towards ignorance and hostile to freedom.
Equally so are the societies which distort the religions, civilizations and behaviour of others in the process of teaching those subjects. Societies which consider materialistic knowledge taboo are likewise reactionary societies, biased towards ignorance and hostile to freedom. Knowledge is a natural right of every human being of which no one has the right to deprive him or her under any pretext, except in a case where a person does something which deprives him or her of that right.

       Ignorance will come to an end when everything is presented as it actually is and when knowledge about everything is available to each person in the manner that suits him or her.



By Muammar Gaddafi
The Green Book.

      You may wonder how education can be unproductive? I'll gladly explain. Let me give you a brief history of my educational history that is pertinent to this article.
      I started going to school at the age of 3yrs. I have finished my university degree and I'm now 22yrs old. That is 19yrs spent in school. Every year its been the same thing, wake up early in the morning at 5:30 am to go to school and sleep late doing your homework and assignments.
      Over these years I have acquired a great deal of wealth in terms of information from how to calculate the circumference of a circle, algebraic equations to calculating the molarity of a chemical.
My parents have spent not less than two million Kenyan shillings for my education not taking into account the inflation rate. (approximately 20,000 US dollars as of 2015)
      Keep in mind that the idealistic and most believed view of education is to gain skills that an employer will hire you for, so 19 years of education and two million shillings just to go work for somebody.
       Both the government and the private business sector can only hire a quarter of the labor force hence the high unemployment rate (67%) among the members of our society especially the graduates. In 2014 about 800,000 participated in the KCPE examinations. 200,000 out of these did not make it to high school in 2015. In 2014, 400,000 candidates sat for KCSE but only 55,000 were admitted to public universities in 2015 by the Joint Admissions Board and this figure is the all time highest as of 2015. Each year Kenya employs in to the job market 50,000 university and college graduates yet each year the number of graduates from institutions of higher learning stands at an average of 300,000.
       Here is my experience at the work places I went to after graduating from university. First off its hard to obtain job security if you are fresh off campus. So for the first few years you will either have to do internships and sometimes volunteer just so you can develop your CV. My first internship was at a government corporation. Prior to this I had written application letters and CV to 47 organizations (comprising of NGOs, private companies, and government corporations) requesting internship. I delivered these letters personally to each institution then afterwards I emailed the respective HR managers with a scanned copy of the letter and CV after asking for their contacts. None of these 47 organizations have contacted me. My aunt who holds an influential position in government pitied my efforts and managed to convince (or was it coerce) the HR manager of the company where I had my first internship to give me an opportunity. For your information this company wasn't among the 47 I had written to.
      On the first month of internship I noticed that most of the employees were on short term contracts and Internships, just like me. Those on permanent basis, most of them "knew someone" influential.
My second internship was at another government parastatal and guess who i knew this time, a member of its executive board of governors who happens to be that same aunt of mine. At least this time I went straight to her for the connect and didn't write letters to anyone. Most interestingly of all, I also didn't write to the HR manager, instead, after he had a brief conversation with my aunt, he told me I could start from the next day.
     On the first two weeks of my stay there, the story was the same. Only the older people (40 yrs and beyond) had permanent jobs.The rest who were in fact majority were there on short contracts to be renewed depending on how it pleased the bosses.
      The most irritating part of this story is that after "putting junk information" into my brain for 19 years, none of the work I did on both internships was related to anything I had studied in school. I had to develop a new set of skills (that include: creative problem solving using Google, asking questions, Using logic, be a quick learner and watch your back for spiteful over competitive co-workers that would do anything to climb that social ladder) in order to be competent at work.
      The reason I think education is unproductive is because it teaches people to be employed rather than to create wealth and be independent. Schools should teach students how to make money and build the economy as an independent individual. In short employers aren't nice, ask the Indian businessman with a clothes store in town.
      This type of realization doesn't resonate with me only, most of the people in this world can attest to what I'm writing.
      I think a child should be trained to communicate and make sensible judgements up to the adolescent age and then from there he or she should be treated as an adult being trained to put food on the table. Therefore the alternative I should have taken was to have my father give me that 2 million at the age of 13 and under his guidance till adulthood, I should have been sharpening my money making skills. Identifying gaps in the market, creative business ideas, and low risk business ventures should have been my profession. Now the end effect is that I know people who are wealthy and have even employed me yet they never went to school.
      Take a look at the professions that have the most pay like sports, business, entertainment, politics, none of which involve academics.



      In conclusion, who do I sue for the wasted 19 years of my life? Plus I wish my children would be that type that gets to standard one and say "Daddy, I don't want school!" Don't get me wrong, education is the key but what is in schools right now is not education, its social slavery