Education: A Parent’s Reflection

I have three children and two of them are now in tertiary education. Being parents, we are aware of our responsibility to give them the best we can afford. We would like to see our children do well for themselves, according to their own gifting and capability, to the glory of God.

I have a constant battle within me as to whether we are doing the right thing for them. Is their choice the right one or should we be more firm in our guidance as to what careers they should be pursuing? Personally I think the choice of a course to study should be the decision they have to make, subject to our agreement (just in case they choose to study esoteric subjects that are of no practical use whatsoever, such as the study of Harry Potter, for example.

How would you feel your straight A’s child decide to study History? What! You may react, no disrespect to some historians here. “My child should be a medical doctor or a lawyer or be in some good profession that will pay handsomely”. “What can a historian do? How much do they earn?” These are valid questions but do we really need to fear for them? That will be a typical mind set of an Asian parent if not all parents throughout the world.

Our parents have to struggle to make ends meet to send us to school in order that we might escape poverty through better education. Likewise our generation struggles so that our children will have better choices for their lives. Lo and behold, when our children were of age to go for tertiary education we were faced with bewildering array of choices that are available. And you are afraid that they might choose incorrectly and thereby suffer in their career path as a consequence of bad choices.

It is true that when someone graduates from the Ivy League or the Oxbridge Universities, they are more or less set for life and will be on an upward path in their chosen career. They will be head hunted by major multinational corporations, civil services departments and universities to fill vacant positions. However, there are causalities too and some do drop out and fail miserably. Not all the successful people that we admire today are products of such august institutes of academy. If one is to measure success by wealth accumulated, Bill Gates is at the top of the pile. Yet he did not finish his Harvard education. The fact that he was in Harvard shows that he has a brilliant mind already. Harvard did not make him brilliant.

While education is important, pure academics are sometimes of no use as the IgNobel Prizes have so successfully parodied. I would certainly not send my children for pure academic studies unless they have a clear interest for research and academics lifestyle. I am more for the vocational approach where one is trained with skills for their field of interest. Technical Institutes as propounded in Germany I believe is the way to go. Their graduates come out with ready skills that are sought after by real life companies and factories. The aim of education is to train someone to be gainfully employed and who can contribute something or make something that people will want or need.

I believe vocational trained graduates who are academically oriented can pursue further degrees. While most of them having been practically trained to add value in manufacturing, services, etc will be gainfully employed. Should they desire to continue in further study, they will already have a practical approach and understanding to what they are interested in, rather than seeking knowledge for knowledge sake?

Statistically speaking, most people will have at least two or three careers in different industry, sometimes completely different from what we have been trained in. Because of that, I am more at ease now with my children’s choice of education. As long as they are well rounded they should be able to adapt and change profession later in life. After all, not many young people really know what they want until much later in life. Life itself is a lifelong education process.

So far I have been talking about academics and skill formation. There is one very important aspect we must not ignore. As an employer and business owner, what do I look for apart from the skills and knowledge of a prospective employee? Character. Yes it is important for me because I need to trust someone under my supervision. Some one who can not only do the task at hand but is able to carry out to the best of his or her ability. Only those who has good character will be able to do well.

For my children, character formation forms a large part of their education. Once they have moral character, skills and knowledge can be added more easily.

How do we form characters? Have a look at some of the books here in the Amazon section. I find Church and Sunday School training invaluable too.