Everyone desires to get an education. We spend a lot of money just to acquire an education. Did you ever consider defining education? Do you know where you can get education? Why do you even want to be educated? Why do you want to educate your child, for fun or for life?
Education as we all know is the process of acquiring desirable knowledge, skills, values and attitudes. Mark the word DESIRABLE. Where can you get what is desirable? Imagine you are a young man, and you want a desirable woman. Two girls are brought to you. One has been under the discipline of the parents. She has learned from the parents until she is immature enough to choose her own way. The other one has grown up on the street. She ran away from the discipline of the parents. She didn’t get the guidance of the parents. She is wild and unsocial. Who do you choose as your wife? It is definite that you choose the discipline one, isn’t it?
What is desirable comes from home. And what is undesirable coming from the wild. We have domestic animals and wild animals. Domestic animals get their education from home, and they are disciplined. Wild animals get their education from the bush, and they are harmful. Cows don’t eat people, but lions do! Why? The secret is just where they get their education. Some of the domestic animals if taken to the wild can be dangerous as lions! Dogs don’t eat people because they are home with people. Try taking a dog to the bush for a year. That same dog will tear you to pieces! I have heard some lions are termed in some countries and stop being dangerous. Why? The education they get makes them what they are!
Where do you take your child? Do you educate your child at home or in the wild? Educating your child at home means, your child gets his/her education in South Sudan. Educating him/her in the wild means, you take him/her to a foreign state like Uganda or Kenya. You educate him/her in South Sudan; he/she is like a cow. Taking him/her to Kenya or Uganda, he/she is like a lion.
A cow gives you milk, meat, skin or dung. You can use your cow for marriage. You can sell it and you get money! A man with cows is respected! Domestic animals are signs of wealth in our community. What do you get from a lion? It will only plan to tear you to pieces! It will hunt you and end your life. Do you get milk from a lion? Can you eat a lion? Do you have lions for sell? A Dinka man or a Nuer man, you raid cattle for marriage, do you also raid lions for marriage?
My friend, take your child to the wild, your child will become a lion! Many children with foreign education are truly wild. Education gives you desirable values and attitudes. What values do you get in the wild? They will not know you, your family, your friends, your community, your state and your country! What is education without knowing the above? I have heard many parents complaining that their girl or boy who grew up in Uganda in the name of better education doesn’t support them. Are they wise to blame their child when they are the cause? Who do they know? They only know their boyfriends or girlfriends, their classmates and their teachers! Do you have any right to blame if they are close to the people they know? Do you think I can be close to a lion? Does a cow come close to a lion? You are not a cattle keeper if you answer affirmatively. A lion will eat a cow if it sees it! Your child has the right to run away from you because you are like a lion and a cow.
Many parents pile reasons why they take their children outside South Sudan for education. They say South Sudan has no qualified teachers. Is it true that there are no qualified teachers in South Sudan? Yes, they may be correct to say that. There are not many qualified teachers in South Sudan. But where does education begin? Does education begin from school? My dear parents, you need to understand what education means. We have informal and formal education. Education begins from home and that is informal education. It is the responsibility of the parents to educate their children before they can be surrendered fully to formal education. Informal education is for character formation. You are a human being because of your character. Formal education on the other hand is the education we get from school. Formal education can’t work in one’s life if one hasn’t received the education of home. Many children have weird behaviours because they lack informal education. I request you to uproot a five-year-old tree. Tell me the story after that. I pledge a thousand dollars if you will easily uproot without any external help. That is how you think teachers can easily change the horrible behaviours of your children! You can’t discipline a lion in the wild, but you can discipline it at home.
Many of us justify our reasons for taking our children to other countries because there are no good schools in the country. People, be honest! Which country is richer than South Sudan? You spend all your money on useless things, and you think good schools can just come alone? Go to Kenya. Did their good schools come from heaven? Didn’t they use their money to build good schools? You spend all your money on marrying after marrying and you think good schools should be in South Sudan? Why do you marry too much? What do you want? You have ten children already whom you can’t manage to take to school, and you want to add more? Why don’t we think, my people? Are you a man because of marriage? Isaac Newton didn’t marry, was he not a man? You sleep in a big hotel which charges you a thousand dollars a day. Is that reasonable? You move to hotels with young ladies. Isn’t that madness to the extreme? You spend all your money on useless guys who you think are your source of defence. You think they will protect you when war elapses in the country. We are just buying cars like water. People desire expensive cars before they even have shelters. You drive a big car and you have nowhere to sleep. Isn’t that worse than Corona Virus? Where do you think good schools can come from when you spend your money recklessly? We must be careful in this, otherwise, we are cursing ourselves.
Do we also forget that education is not where you go to but who you are! We can still make it even with our schools which you think are not good schools. There are very many educated people who didn’t go anywhere but they perform the best! I had had my primary education and secondary education in the government schools in South Sudan. Go to Buluk A 1 primary school. You will get my record there. Go to future secondary school. They will tell you about me. I graduated with First Class Honours from Catholic University of South Sudan. Visit the University for your Satisfaction. I have many students in my class. Some are returnees from Uganda and Kenya. They don’t do better than my students who have been getting their education in South Sudan. The problem is your mind! Your mindset is wrong! You have problems with believing in yourself. You think others are better than others. Because of this mind-set, many students don’t believe in the national teachers. They only believe in foreign teachers. Please, change your mind. You are wrong.
This is the claim of almost everyone! There is war in the country and therefore I must take my children to Uganda. Are you serious? Do you think a man will burn a house if he knows his children are in the house? The answer is a big NO in capital letters! Many people who support war in the country have their children outside the country. I am a teacher teaching in one of the best schools in the country. I have never registered any child from one of the big guys I know. It is us destroying the country. It is the same us to stop destroying the country. Are you not a fool if you pour all the sewage in the city into your house and plan to go to someone’s house? You are not wise if you are comfortable in someone’s roof.
Dear reader, remember we don’t go to school for fun. We go to school for life. If we need our generation to inherit our values, we should educate them in our country. A lion is called a wild animal because it lives in the wild. It can be termed at home and be a domestic animal. A dog has big teeth. It doesn’t eat people because it lives with people. It can eat people if it is taken to the wild. If you want your child to have character, please, educate your child where you are. Education is not about certificates. It is entirely about character formation. Character is formed at home, not in the wild!!!