Stop Telling Children to Choose the Sciences

From the start of our schooldays, we have maths and science as subjects.

Financial subjects like accounting, economics and business studies are only introduced to us in high school.

The sciences are upheld as the logical choice, and “oh yes, there is some other stuff you could take”.

Namibia is in desperate need of accountants and economists – we need engineers and scientists as well – but the promotion of these fields is certainly lacking.

Students who would be perfectly suited to accounting are instead fighting to barely pass physics.

Why? Because schools do not teach us that careers not associated with science are just as respectable.

Monetary principles should be introduced to children at an earlier age.

Information about investing, saving, etc.,could be beneficial to everyone – not only those students who end up choosing the finance stream.

Knowledge about energy conversion would most likely be entirely useless to someone who ends up choosing to study business.

Yet we put so much emphasis on one and not the other.

Imagine if the entirety of the next generation was equipped with the knowledge of how money works.

Regardless of what career they would choose, they would no doubt know much more about wealth creation.

Imagine what that could do for our economy or the growth of our country as a whole.

If only schools started treating money matters as essential knowledge instead of a do-it-yourself project. Instead, they base the curriculum mainly on abstract scientific knowledge that is only beneficial to specific students.

Maybe fewer students would be asking themselves: “When will I ever use this again?”

Angelo Tadesse