Learning is better with silver and gold!
The colonial adage: “learning is better than silver and gold,” is a superficial academic assertion.
In the 21st century, science and human existence have revolutionized the way we live, interact, and die, to determine our social vision for the future.
As human beings, we follow a relatively simple method to ascertain our welfare in our society.
First, we need to specify some concepts of interest for us to be the academics (learning) or the materialistic (silver and gold).
Secondly, we have to posit or suggest some relationship between these concepts.
Thirdly, we need to test whether the posited relationship reflects what happens in the real world when we hypothetically look at learning or education as against riches (silver and gold).
If our testing or observation shows that our posited relationship does reflect what goes on in the real world, we have reason to conclude that we have succeeded in understanding something about the nature of things in the world as well as our living standards.
In the world today, the concept of standard of human beings in the materialistic context environment supersedes that of academic or educational attainment; therefore learning is better than silver and gold needs to be critically examined.
It may sound very good to a student that is pursuing his or her academic course in a tertiary institution or university. But it will not sound any good to a graduate who has completed a computer course for three years without a job as compared to a school leaver, who has a stock of goods in his shop along Goderich Street in central Freetown.
The two are very important variables with distinctive characteristics.
First, a variable in this context is something that is thought to influence or be influenced by another thing.
For instance, suppose I were to assert that income is thought to influence noting behavior. My assertion here makes reference to two important variables, one is income and the other is noting behavior.
The first, income, is a clear variable because it is thought to influence noting behavior. The second, noting behavior is thought to be influenced by income.
During the one party system of government under Siaka Stevens, the name of a Bailor Barry was more important than the Author Peters and Eldred Jones.
During the same era illiterate politicians like Tombo Yeheh in Bo and Tamba E. Tuana in Kailahun Districts; defeated academic giants such Prince Alex Harding and Dr. Sakilla Nyuma Bondi in the 1986 elections.
Thus their victory was influenced by the first variable which is income. They had money (silver and gold)
This brings us to the modern idea of learning them silver and gold. Looking at modern societies or smaller groups, such as more than just assemblies of people, you would see social structures. In a social structure in modern Sierra Leone you detect a relatively stable role or status of certain families based on academic achievement, learning, and material acquirement silver and gold, but one is more prominent in a social gathering.
How do we as individuals come to occupy a certain status? As stated above the importance of being educated or an academic is just a social security to empower an individual in the world of academic. But academic achievement without a chamber of commerce for one’s livelihood and reasons of survival is completely a fleeting illusion.
By Felix.D. Fofoh
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