Education – Two Sides To The Coin

I am writing merely to contribute to the supposition raised by the author of the article titled ‘Why Make Use Of The Education System?’.

Evidence suggests education has two purposes – to supply labour and to produce university professors. The dichotomy of public and arguable private education was eloquently illustrated by Sir Ken Robinson through the TED talk ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity’, a pleasant watch if you want to look deeper into the subject. Deriving not only from his presentation but from the consequences of education at large, it appears that education does suppress creativity, and since universities are at the helm of the education system we should not expect anything to change because it (the education system) serves its interests.

What we can agree upon is that graduates should expect themselves to create employment and are duty-bound to improve the lives of their family, community and country. At the same time, we need the help of everyone to make such transformations a success. This is why it is important to recognise that in order to create opportunities and transform our economy, we need graduates that are creative, knowledgable and responsible, and unfortunately, schools do not necessarily provide that.

Then why make use of education? To avoid reinventing the wheel and to be able to read, write and speak – this is what school is for. It would be a waste and in my estimation, embarrassing, if we are to invent something that already exists. Therefore, the ideal school would be one that makes us know enough to improve on existing problems and systems that affect our daily lives.

While education is a constitutional right in Namibia this does not solve the problem. Let’s take Kenya’s recent revelations regarding its state of education, a situation we are too familiar with: ‘Access to education may not be the real issue plaguing the education sector – high enrolment rates and full classrooms do not necessarily translate into knowledge or quality. What Kenyatta’s government really should be focusing on is the quality of Kenya’s education…’ (‘Kenya’s Education Focus,’ July 20, 2017)

What it tells us is that quality, not quantity, is the problem, that we should be looking to improve the quality of our students. If a good foundation is not laid what is more likely to follow is poor performance. What does, however, seem to affect the quality of education are elements such as poverty, lack of discipline and public education.

Lastly, while education in the 19th century was considered ‘one way to win’ (OWTW) as described by Dr Kenneth Gray in his book ‘Other Ways to Win’, this strategy does not fit the bill anymore and one of its overhauling factors is the dawn of the information, also known as the digital, age.

Therefore the current education system is for students who want to look for employment vis-a-vis create employment. It is for academically gifted students who may want to become professors and not inventors and entrepreneurs. If you want to become an entrepreneur and create employment, which our country and Africa at large desperately needs, we need an alternative system that focuses on producing creative, knowledgeable and morally responsible graduates.

Mavin Mootseng is a bachelor of accounting student at the University of Namibia. He is the author of

‘The Graduate: Think About Thinking’ available in ebook on the Kindle book store. You can email him at

mavinmootseng@gmail.com.

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