Education is a lifetime compass

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday July 7, 2025 06:00

No quality education is cheap. It costs both government and parents who choose to sponsor their own children a fortune. The costs of educating and training people, specifically to win a prosperous and sustainable future, are justifiable.

If the quality is right, education acquired should be a sufficient weapon exploited to alter livelihoods for the better and never for worse. Any form of education and training pursued in vacuum, without any connection to the practical realities of life and people’s experiences, beyond the classroom, is a scam and therefore not worth the taxpayers’ money. It constitutes a bad investment, a waste of resources, which could have been ploughed elsewhere for good returns. A well-designed and appropriate education and training system should manage to keep at bay crises that continue to dog our society particularly the young generation.

Crises of unemployment, under employment, poor debt management and the spirit of consumerism amongst others are consequences of bad and ill-conceived education and training systems. Sometimes, albeit a rarity, as life experiences would show those without formal education make better and wiser investment decisions than those armed with bad education.

To buttress this point I would like to draw from experiences of young people whose fates were thrown into different pathways and destinies. The one boy traversed the academic journey while the other the employment route. Both were inspired by a common desire to improve their livelihoods. At the start of the academic journey, as it was the norm in the 1970 and 1980s it was never anticipated to be a long undertaking. Usually it only lasted seven years resulting in a valuable primary school leavers’ qualification.

Not so bad at a time when there was a serious drought of education. A handful of gifted, lucky and persistent students who also came almost invariably from affluent backgrounds could proceed and complete the 10-year basic education. But it was a very rare occurrence.

Upon completion of then much treasured and prized standard seven qualification, young people could take up few opportunities in then fledgling teaching, military and police service establishments. But the majority took the train going down south to eke out a living in the belly of the soil in the South African mines. As fate would have it the academic journey of the one boy became longer than anticipated.

Overcoming many trials and tribulations, the boy proudly walked out with a degree qualification to become one of the few educated village folks in his generation. At about the same period, his cousin, much older than him, was already employed in the South African mines, blasting rocks to extract diamonds and other precious metals in the belly of mother earth.

Armed with no formal education, he served as an unskilled labourer. Although subjected to what Marxists would call exploitation of man by man, his earnings ultimately altered his livelihood for the better. Thirty years later, the mine boy retired and came back and re-joined his wife, children and the rest of the village folks as a mature, wiser man, much more equipped with knowledge and skills for survival. While working not only did he manage to successfully send his children to schools but upon his return his bank balance looked healthy.

While contracted in the mines he had gradually but surely invested his money in developing his inherited farming field, stuffing it with small stock in the process while also refurbishing and fine tuning the family’s old house into a decent home.

This was in addition to a few valuable possessions he brought back home - a mini truck, a tractor and trailer, a donkey cart plus a bicycle. Meanwhile, the children he had reared and educated with his money had also completed their studies and began to take care of their upkeep while contributing to the economic well being of the family.

He lives a fairly decent life, almost debt free and appears with the fruit of his labour and what God has gifted him. And by any standards he is rated as one of the successful mine returnees our village has ever produced, having accomplished so much with no education. The employment route the mine boy took finally paid dividends.

The academically ‘empowered’ boy confidently armed with a glittering university degree landed a safe and permanently secure job opportunity in government. Everything looked perfectly right. It was a seamless take off in the sense he did not have to struggle to find a house to live in as the government provided not only an institutional house but also a fully furnished one.

This was in addition to enjoyment of a highly subsidised rental. One could not have asked for a better start! However, what started like a life of bliss was sooner rather later to metamorphose into a disaster. It soon proved that admitting a young graduate into the money economy without financial literacy and life survival skills was an overwhelming experience. Instead of the slow build up, which the mine boy undertook, the graduate took loans with commercial banks to jump-start his life and upgrade his standard of living almost overnight. Modern conveniences- an automobile and household items were acquired instantly with the assistance of borrowed money. Children too were sent to private English medium schools- a good investment, which also came at a high cost. Nonetheless, it was worth it. A chain of small loans ensued to support both necessities and luxuries associated with middle class life. But there was a huge price to pay.

More loans had to be sought which resulted in a situation where the young graduate was caught up in the debt trap. The spirit of consumerism took the better of him leading to poverty and undignified existence. It would appear the same spirit of consumerism continues to be a prominent characteristic feature of the young graduates. No thought was ever spared to invest in acquisition of land and other means of production, which would have been investment into a sustainable and prosperous future. Unlike his mine boy counterpart, the graduate was to return home after almost three decades of uninterrupted public service with not only a battered economy but also a bruised ego.

Adapting to rural life after years of insulation and disengagement is a daunting work. This is a clear indication that academic qualification unaccompanied by financial literacy and life survival knowledge and skills is a non-starter - a scam indeed. Whatever disciplines students are pursuing money education should be a mandatory programme of study.

Life essentially revolves around making decisions on how, where and when to spend money. Life experiences are compelling enough to cause a paradigm shift. Bookish education had its place at a particular point in time.

It is now time to craft a new pathway- coupling knowledge with experiences of life that students are expected to live upon completion of their study tours. Trying to separate academic pursuits from life has proved to be disastrous.

It is a painful experience to notice an educated person struggling to adjust and fit into roots- rural skills driven life upon termination of a tour of life in the cities and villages beyond one’s ancestral lands.