Can Development happen without Education II?
Education instills in humans’ morals and conscience to live right. An agenda for national development should be attitudinal and behavioral in nature. Education has the element to change people attitudes, opinions, mindset etc. development can speed up on it wheels when it is driven by the right attitudes.
Most often than not our education has bordered so much on qualification, certification, and in cases where critical thinking development is achieved, morality and attitudinal change is deemphasized. Character, morality and attitude are fundamental to national development.
Most western cultures that thrived on development have specific attitudes and moral that fosters national development. For example, people’s attitude towards time, welfare, service, sanitation, innovation, creativity, opportunity and the likes are very positive.
One of the things that has bedeviled most African economies has been our attitudinal approach to development. It seems our education is less concerned of building the right attitudes that accelerates developments. It is common to find that both the educated and uneducated of our citizenry have attitudinal problem such as biases, prejudices, stereotyping, mediocrity, insensitivity corruption, apathy, slothfulness, and simple-minded approach to development.
Education helps us work on these weaknesses that I have mentioned earlier and imbibe into the citizenry sense of responsibility, morality, sense of urgency, time consciousness, confidence, patriotism etc. Let us note that education does not only equip us to develop but it also comes with the integrity and sincerity of developing as a nation. Education without integrity is like a man of words and not of deeds.
Education is a tool for national development because it opens avenues for creativity and innovation. Human life is changing rapidly as a result of the fast changes in our environment. It is imperative to note that development is driven by the things in the environment. The advancement in technological world is drawing the attention of all countries move along with it.
According to Cryril Houles, knowledge and skills acquired today easily becomes obsolete as result of the new information and knowledge which is created sooner than one can imagine. The good news is that education helps us to move at the same pace of technological development.
Countries that have no educational system that pushes for innovation and creativity tend to suffer and usually lag behind. Innovation and creativity fuels the speed of technological advancements. However, innovation and creativity are usually hindered by status quos which makes it difficult for our country to develop.
This partly accounts for lack of creativity and innovative potentials that educational system fails to provide for its citizenry. Graduates are churning out from higher learning institutions every year yet ingenuity is poor and not encouraging.
The evidence of graduate employment shows how our education has not dared us to be innovative and creative to turn our nation around with job creation and entrepreneurship born out of creativity and innovation. To end this, education has the power to help as to be innovative and creative to support the national agenda for development.
In conclusion, education is indispensable in this dispensation and it seems to be the only hope on which we can develop as a nation. I would want to entreat educational policy makers, teachers, parents and students to pay attention to our education and collaborate to use the channel of education as our foundation of national development.
By Maxwell Asare Boateng
(Kofi Dagrapha)
