What Is Wrong With Us?

Ahmed Salifou - Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Our children prefer laziness to hard work; our children prefer scam to productivity; our children prefer paying for their school assignments to doing them themselves, and what else? Our nations are going deeply into an intellectual chaos where we are producing mediocrity day after another.

Africa is a continent full of cultures, costumes, religions, etc. that keeps it serene and calm. That environment gives us the chance to keep some wise habits and live in a nice hierarchy. We still believe in respect, dignity, divinities, etc. But that should not prevent us from being excellent compared to other continents.

My concern in this post is more about education in Africa. I have been facing a lot of situations that are not tolerable for the goodness of our nations.

What is school today in Africa?

For many years we have been living in favoritism and too many care-free attitudes. We have been building slow and mediocre brains, forgetting that, that generation will have to teach and lead another one. Still, care was not taken, and the same problem is going to repeat generations upon generations.

We took, many years to cry and complain about "white man" coming to steal us. Please, I believe it is time, our time, to realize that we have many ways today to survive without the "white man". He has given us his manner of living and handling things. Even though we consider it as a break to our own civilization, we can still make it using "his" manner.

In almost 90% of schools in Africa, the education level is not up to the international standard. Students always go and get papers and come back to feed our nations with incompetency. All bodies of our nations are failing, including our governments. Don't agree with me, check the world universities ranking: http://www.webometrics.info/en/world.

Our universities don't invest in excellent education and researchers; they prefer making money and sleeping on it. Somebody said, they make money from out of Africa's resources and send their children abroad for their education. I call it stupidity. Because whatever you do you will come back.

If everyone should send his kids abroad, Africa will remain empty and "white-man" will come back for it, and make it his land, but since you are running to the white man's land, you will also have to come back to Africa, his new land. If you decide to build the highest infrastructures and hide into, when everyone will become hungry, you will be robbed or killed...

Simply, everything we do, we do it for ourselves.

It is hard to explain what is really happening to us. We live in countries in which children are not oriented to excellence, but in mediocrity rather. We teach our children to be lazy, dull, slow and we end up not helping ourselves.

I strongly believe we can still change things and put them on the right path. We need to build solidarity excellency. No matter how much you pay, you are not supposed to pass if you don't have the required score. Schools should follow students in their activities, by giving them the chance to express their talents. Reward and encourage hard workers. Teachers should be evaluated (practically) before getting employed, no matter the certification. Schools should invest in researches conducted by teachers and students, and if possible create some excellency publications. Every year, the government has to check and validate all schools through their results.

Parents must know that their children are not only for them, they also belong the nation, therefore rules must be applied to them and get the best from them for the good of our nations and for the future generations. Check out this example of excellence.

At this point, many must be saying "this guy is really crazy, who will waste his money and time for that?".

Unfortunately, I can't point out anyone here. And these are the signs of our uncertain future.