₦airaland Forum

Education, education, education, over and over again everywhere you turn the advocacy for education is strong especially in developing nations like ours. Different global institutions and humanitarian movements have prioritised education as one of the primary and compulsory requirement for Africans as a pre requisite to seeing the expected and much anticipated development of the continent – Africa; the next frontier.

In Nigeria, education is daily rated as a primary and essential need for every young citizen; so rife and popular is this advocacy to the end that the word illiterate; which is a term used to describe a non-educated person is considered an insult. Education is considered the key to success in Nigeria.

Lately I've been looking and watching; paying attention to the implication of what we popularly call education and I discovered many Nigerians are literate but not educated.

Over the years, there has been this confusion and mix up between being literate and being educated. Education is not just the ability to read and write, that is literacy.

Many literate people consider themselves educated and pride themselves as such, unfortunately, majority accept literate people as educated. To be literate is not the same as being educated. Many young people leave home for school today to acquire literacy and in the process ignore education, they graduate as literate or for a more apt description erudite in a particular field but not educated.

Education is not just skill acquisition, education is not just learning a profession, an art, a science or an ability, many people go to school to learn about art, a science, a skill, a profession and an ability but ignore or shun real education.
Primarily in Nigeria, people go to school to learn an ability so as to secure an employment, they spend four, five, six or even nine years in school acquiring the competence and practice ability of a profession but ignore education because from the onset, they did not know what it means to be educated in today's world.
Unfortunately, we have in surplus uneducated doctors, uneducated lawyers, uneducated engineers, uneducated accountants, uneducated politicians, administrators and managers. They all went to school and were certified competent in a field or profession but all missed education because they were not seeking for education, they wanted ability, got it but missed education.

In time past, education could be defined as knowledge and skill acquisition for a profession, a degree or kind of schooling, but dear friend, not anymore.
Dictionary.com today defines, Education as the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgement, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.
In today's complex world where every sphere of our lives; family, community, country, global sectors and systems are strongly interconnected and fused together thus, losing exclusivity and autonomy, education is no longer about a profession or a degree from schooling.
Education in today's world according to dictionary.com'sdefinition is about general knowledge. Knowing something about everything that matters. A truly educated fellow will know something about everything and everything about one thing, that one thing would be his profession.

You must know everything about your profession and know something about everything else. If everything you know is your profession I'm afraid in today's world, you just have a certain ability; you're not really educated. Education today is about general knowledge.
Recently I was listening to the governor of Lagos state speak, and he was talking numbers like an accountant, infrastructure like an engineer, social welfare like a social worker, management like a manager, resource control like an administrator, politics like a politician and legality like a lawyer. He spoke confidently, audaciously and brilliantly on all subjects, my friend, that is education.
Education today is about developing the powers of reasoning and judgment. Your ability to reason through matters must be superior to that of the man on the street. Your judgment must be sound, balanced and productive. It's about superior intellectual power.

You can't be educated and throw thrash from your car on the streets, you can't be educated and empty your garbage in the drainage; you can't be educated and run the red light in traffic when traffic officials are not around, you can't be educated and drive against traffic or form two three lanes in a traffic hold up, you can't be educated and use swear words or be vulgar in conversations and on social media and in your dressing in public.
You may have degrees like a thermometer and attend the best schools in the world if you act like a social and an urban misfit, education is not in you.
The way you would react to someone from your village cooking with firewood in your living room and placing the cooking pot on your sofa is the way a truly educated mind would react to someone driving against traffic, running the red light or throwing thrash from the car to the streets. Now adjudge yourself my dear friend, are you educated?
Education must reflect in your conduct and behaviours, if you're educate you need not tell people before they know it, it will show. The extent to which you conduct yourself as educated determines the level of respect you're accorded by people. Educated people are hardly disrespected by superiors or subordinates because they behave appropriately.

Education today is about intellectual power, superior thinking, superior behaviours and better ways of getting things done.
The melting point of all profession is in education. People may be different in profession but would relate very well and think alike because they are educated. Education is superior to profession. Profession is limited, education is limitless in impact.
Education is basically about superior thinking, superior answers, superior behaviours and superior solutions. It's about superior methods producing superior answers.

Let me explain this, a land dispute many years ago could lead to wars and battles between families and communities bringing about bloodshed and deaths. But today, a land dispute can easily be resolved in the court of law; no battles, no fighting, no bloodshed. And the land will go to the rightful owner and the contender will hands off because the court of law said so.

Dear friend that is superior process and solution. That is what education teaches. Better ways to better results. This issue has nothing to do with the profession of the land contenders. They obey what the court says because they are educated enough to respect the legal institution.
Education is about building more civil societies; respect for one another and treating everyone appropriately. Education refines; takes away barbaric behaviours and brutish tendencies.
And please get this, a truly educated professional that will prosper in this dispensation will not go to school to acquire knowledge and regurgitate what he leant in the work place, a truly educated professional will go to school, acquire knowledge then use the knowledge to create solutions for today's challenges and living styles. That is true education. Dear friend, are you educated?
Enjoy your day!


Source: http://muyiwaafolabi.com/blog/Frankly-Speaking-With-Muyiwa-Afolabi/TODAY-ON-FRANKLY-SPEAKING--ARE-YOU-EDUCATED955.php

If only d op were educated, she would hav posted this in d right section!

See quesion. Abeg pak wel wel

But the tin use style style plenty o

Cutehector:
If only d op were educated, she would hav posted this in d right section!

Honestly, I was expecting u to post something sensible when I saw dat u were viewing this thread.

delectablegyal:
Honestly, I was expecting u to post something sensible when I saw dat u were viewing this thread.

I would have. Buh it so was in d wrong section.. Maybe u were looking for traffic, since few people follow d education section...

Lalasticlala i brought dis delicious food for u, kindly devour it.