EDUCATION - Keystone to Freedom and Progress?

Former Education Secretary, Raul Roco once said, “Pag ikaw’y may edukasyon, para kang nakasandal sa pader.”

Why? What is education? Unfortunately, we Filipinos today have a wrong notion of what real education is. If our point of education is to land a job and work abroad as caregivers, then we might as well be not educated at all. If our point of education is merely to find gainful employment which more regrettably is where our current educational system now is predicated, then we might us well not go to school and turn these once very noble edifices of learning into what? Markets? Trading places? Or maybe not as worse, vocational schools?

The point of education is not just to enable students to work; it is to enable students to THINK. The point of education is not just to impart skills; it is to IMPART VISION. The point of education is not just to prepare the student to face the “outside world.” The point of education is to EDUCATE.

Ignorance comes not without a price. A lot has been clamoring for the high cost of education. I say, “Try ignorance. Can you afford the price of ignorance?” The problem why we Filipinos have not been totally liberated from the bondage of all which ail humankind is simply because most of us are ignorant. Sadly, we flaunt our literacy rate to be one of the highest in the world. But what kind of literacy are we talking about here? If we are almost all educated, then why do most of us are still poor and self-indulging from the crumbs of government officials who vulgarly parade there PhD degrees? All of us are literate because we have been to school once but most of us are functionally illiterate because we have not been taught how to think. Instead, we have been schooled in institutions which skilled us with all the tricks in the bag on how to be mediocre, on how to short-changed others, on how to make money easier by cheating, on how to live life to die a lot much faster than I can deliver this speech. Have we been taught how to think like human beings should do?

Education is liberating only, and only if it equates to functional literacy. I say, “You have been educated in the real sense. Why will you be able to proudly say now that you are free?”

I would like to go beyond what your traditional school taught you how to define freedom. According to what I learn from the school which teaches how to think, freedom is eternal happiness. Am I talking eschatological or something metaphysical here? Yes and yes to both.

When education becomes a way of liberating oneself from the burdens of what ail humankind and thus results to pleasure and joy, then education has served its purpose. Let us talk about poverty. The paucity of needs to sustain life and the worsening of our living conditions may be multi-factorial; thus, must not only be blamed to the President of this power-hungry nation. What really is the main reason of poverty which prevents us from enjoying life with much pleasure and joy? Simply, ignorance-the powerlessness to think! Most of us haven’t thought that we are not supposed to be poor. Most of us haven’t thought that we are supposed to be ruled by fair laws and not by unfair lawmakers. Most of us haven’t thought that we are not just to pray for food but to work for food. Most of us haven’t thought how to think at all! All because we have not been educated in the real sense. We are poor now and we will continue to wallow in poverty and misery if we will not think. Only then will education serve its purpose of freeing us from whatever ails humankind and consequently bringing us life full of pleasure and joy. May I not serve to bother your conscience now though. Education indeed can be the key to freedom; however, man in order to be totally free must get rid of himself from the quagmires of poverty. He has to think.

Poverty is the sole reason why we will not progress. Poverty, in fact, is the absence of progress. In order for the whole nation to progress, every citizen should be living in a condition worthy of human dignity. No segment of society should be left out. Yes, I believe this can be done by education for education is to impart vision not just skills. A truly educated person thinks of the future, has a vision of his future and works for the attainment of this future. Education therefore, makes one goal-oriented. Again, we would like to believe that ours is a country of literate Filipinos. But how come we are not progressive? How come still majority of us Filipinos live below the poverty line? How come dirty and sick children still roamed around city streets? How come women still sell themselves for even a few dollars less? How come fathers still left there families to work abroad? How come only a few managed to make it with life in this country? “We are educated,” I say, but why are we poor?

I don’t want to burden your heavy hearts now with more rhetoric. I have made my points clear. I believe and I will die with this belief that education indeed is the key to freedom, and that freedom is imperative for progress; but if we still cling on to that notion of education for work and not education for life, then we might as well die buried in stone slabs. For instead of a solid wall to lean on according to Secretary Raul Roco, the wall will come crashing heavily on our heads to make us think that education is there to educate! It would be too late to realize, for we will have been dead by then. In pace requiescat!