I went back to school to get my bachelor's in technology. People ask me, "Why did you go back?" The simple answer is "to get the paper".
But since we were young, we were told that school is the place you go for knowledge. So why not go back to school for knowledge?
Honestly, we live in an age where you can learn almost anything you want without school. You can build almost anything you want to build, whether you sat in a lecture hall or not. And yet society still asks us to sit through years of lectures that have 0% to do with our future. Students know this. Most of them are not there to learn. They are there to pass the time, write the exam, get the paper, and go home.
The system is rigid. Inflexible. Sometimes I wish it worked like this: What do you need to be able to do to earn this degree? Can you do it? Yes? Here is your degree. But the world is not that generous. You have to sit through four years first.
Don't get me wrong. Some people genuinely learn a lot. But I have been writing code since 2020, and most of what we cover in class are basics that even high school students already know. Isn't that a waste of time? Then there is mathematics. I personally don't like mathematics, and maybe that is exactly why it is hard for me to get it. But I will be honest, it often feels useless to me.
As for the teachers, some are genuinely good at this. You learn from them, and they are great to be around. Others are just filling the hours so they have something to report. It is like our education became a stage: one person pretending to teach, another pretending to learn.
In a few months or years, everyone will graduate, whether they learned anything or not. The school will celebrate: high marks, high attendance, big graduation numbers. But really? Is that what we should be celebrating? In a country where youth unemployment is over 14% (and I suspect that is an understatement), I don't think a student scoring 90% or 100% on an exam is the achievement we should be clapping for.
We should be asking different questions. How many jobs were created for young people, or by them? What are young people actually building with the skills they supposedly have? Do they even have those skills? Why do our students struggle when outside bootcamps and programs test them? Why can a fresh university graduate fail to articulate their own ideas? Is that acceptable?
When curricula are designed, industry leaders are invited to the table so that the content stays relevant to the industry. So why do we keep landing at the same result? Something is wrong, if not with the whole system then somewhere inside it.
Not every student is being left behind. Some excel. And if you look closely, the students who excel are usually the ones who are also good at studying on their own.
The government spends a lot of money for us to study. Should we also ask it to spend on those who want to start businesses? A loan you repay once the business is standing on its own feet? Maybe that is not a great idea, because once money is in people's hands, you cannot control what they do with it. But it is worth asking.
Let me also look at the bright side. I know people whose lives were changed by being in school. Some kids are saved by school, kept from drifting into becoming failed youth. That is real, and I am not dismissing it.
In primary school, a pupil who was performing well could skip a year. I wish that were possible everywhere. Say you need to pass 30 modules for a master's degree. Let me sit the exams. If I pass all of them, give me the master's and let me go to work.
This is my rant as a student. I am not an expert in education. But it is evident that something is wrong and something needs to change.
What is your opinion?
