This means 5110 youngsters who finished school last year will have no chance for a higher education. This means 5110 youngsters will be looking to join the work force. Since these youngsters are not qualified for most jobs on offer and since our job market is not growing at a rate to absorb 5000 new workers every year, this means a majority of these youngsters will be unemployed. This means, with nothing better to do, these youngsters will turn to drugs and gangs to kill time. This means these youngsters will be hardened criminals and drug addicts in a couple of years. I will leave it to your imagination what this would mean to our country’s economic and social fabric in a few years.
What worries me even more is that it seems that nobody cares about these kids anymore. The fact that more than 5000 students failed the O’ levels was only mentioned as a side note in the media under the headline that the top 10 has been announced. None of the so called journalists, pundits, and analysts seemed to have even noticed that our education system has failed miserably.
In one of the articles in the media, it was mentioned that more than 9 million Rufiyaa was spent to seat those kids who didn’t pass a single subject. The writer was apologetic and tried to portray that money as been wasted. I disagree. I don’t think it was wasted money and I think we should spend another 9 million if necessary to seat these kids again next year so that they can become productive members of society. Or else the cost will be much more than 9 million Rufiyaa when these kids turn out to be hardened criminals. We still remember the 50 million Rufiyaa incurred by the state when hell broke in Maafushi jail recently.
As a country, we need to wake up from our slumber, without politicizing everything, if we are to have any hopes for the future. As of right now, that future is looking very bleak.
Well, there can be no way that all who finish school can do their University Education. What we need to do is to create a place to train such kids for various trade jobs like carpentry, welding, metal fabrication, handicrafts and even practical or performing arts. We lack a proper Technical and Further Education college or institute where such kids can go and become useful citizens. Our education system has been molded by Dr Zahir Husains visionery of creating a country of University Graduates, in a country with no University. He laid this crroked foundation of Education almost 20 or 30 years back, which was wrong and thus it has now risen crooked. HAd we given emphasis on colleges to train people for trade jobs we would have not had a large proportion of young people looking for white collar jobs which are scarce. The tell tale of our system was to create an elite for white collar jobs, which can never be possible given the disparity in the educational facilities of our country.Just because your born in a small island your deprived of proper education and unless your extremely bright and intelligent you never get the chance for higher education. Why cant we teach school leavers, the handicrafts, and fishing and other trade jobs to make them good productive citizens, surely its not everyones cup of tea to earn a University Degree.
ReplyDeleteThings tend to go wrong when money becomes our goal and not the means for achieving our goals. Unfortunately, this is the case in Maldives at the moment. We have politicians tainted by self interest and greed, citizens who bend for every crooked word of every crooked politicians. I for one wouldn't be surprised if this issue becomes "water under the bridge" in a matter of days.
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