“Soma kwa bidii ama utateseka kwa hii maisha” is a common phrase that is retorted by multiple caring parents to their Kenyan children. A phrase that at the surface seems helpful and sensible but in actuality, one that causes more damage than help. This might seem counter-intuitive but the phrase and the culture that overvalues academics rather than education equips the children with all the wrong skill-sets and mind frame required to survive in the current world. This can be clearly seen when the all too obedient son or daughter works hard to get the right grades to end up jobless with papers with decent grades confused on what to do next with himself or herself or even worse is the artistic souls who end up in highly scientific world due to good grades instead of their actual interest where they end up doing a job that slowly but surely sucks out their soul.
The culture of overvaluing academic success like any other culture in existent was born out of necessity. A necessity for blue caller jobs to fill professional vacancies in a newly minted country that required doctors, engineers and accountants and a necessity for most people to escape poverty in a country that most people lived under a dollar a day. Our parents being nothing more than victims of their times spread on what they considered an actual truth taught to them by their time: education equals a good job which equals to an escape from poverty. A notion that I don’t disagree with but one that has led to development of a generation of mindless individuals who only think of academic papers.
A toxic culture that has led parents to ignore raising competent and complete individuals instead shipping them off to boarding schools as early as ten years old to be forced to cram a bunch of useless information, fed food that is better served to prisoners and where I believe forced to go against their natural body clock by being woke up at odd hours of the night to cram some more useless knowledge in their brains. This may seem to finally pay off when the kids who are sold to the slavery of academic success emerge successful in their class eight national exams and appear everywhere on tv where they get to enjoy their five minutes of fame but this is simply a case of selective blindness where the majority of the children affected by the system are ignored. The children who possessed high spatial intelligence to become great footballers are not nurtured rather discouraged from playing instead their P.E. classes are replaced by boring math lessons. The children who were creative and who well have wrote good music are ignored from pursing their music interests. The curious children who were truly passionate about learning are discouraged from pursuing their curiosity instead forced to practice dark art of rote memorization.
Some readers may decide to play the devil’s advocate and point out that we have successful musicians such as Sauti Sol and successful footballers such as Victor Wanyama. A point I won’t disagree with but one I would argue suffers from selective bias. A bias that ignores the countless individuals who were failed by the system and focusing on the few individuals who had to endure a lot of hardships. The countless of individuals who are failed by the system end pursing courses they have zero interest. This in my opinion is what has led to the creation of countless engineers who get a degree but can’t innovate anything new. This is also what in my opinion has created countless literature degree holder who don’t contribute anything in the world of literature.
While the comfort of choice and following your passion might seem like a notion for the well to do or a luxury for the well to do nations, the world is changing and blue collar jobs are becoming scarce. The necessity for a new culture has being created. A culture that should encourage kids to explore their interests and teaches them the values of giving it your all in whatever you do from football to comedy. A culture that doesn’t ship kids to boarding schools at early ages but aims to form well rounded individuals.
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