Education Or Schooling: Which One?

Is schooling the same thing as education? This question may sound strange and unnecessary, but it shouldn’t be. Education has been associated with schooling for so long a time that both now sound as one and the same thing to our ears.

However, education is the goal while schooling is a means of achieving the goal. It’s not the only means though. What many have achieved by going to school, there are others that achieved that without doing so. For example, I know of one Mr. Ifeanyi Okonkwo, who without going to school to study law, educated himself enough in that discipline that he represents himself in court and even up to the Supreme Court. He did this through self-study and someone who should know told me his collection of law books has become so rich that lawyers come to borrow from him. When he ran for governorship of Anambra State in 2007, he represented himself up to the apex court as he pursued post-election litigations.

More instructively, what many have failed to achieve by going to school, some others achieved without doing so. How many persons with degree certificates in science have been able to do anything near the number of inventions made by the legendary Thomas Edison who spent only a couple of months at school but ended up becoming one of the greatest scientists the world has ever known through self-study?

There are many ways of learning including personal studies, observation, and informal coaching. Learning mustn’t happen in school to become learning. In his book, DESCHOOLING SOCIETY, Ivan Illich, in 1970, called for ridding society of school in order to rescue education from the hostage which the school system holds it.

In truth, the school system has its role being that it ensures standardisation and is a crucial means of evidencing learning via certification. However, here also lies the problem because certificate may actually not tell the whole truth due to a lot of factors. These include the shortcomings of examination as a test of knowledge and the possibility (especially in our clime) of people circumventing the process through exam malpractice, bribery, forgery and other dishonest acts. The school system has made learning a sort of race where people compete to be recognized as better than others both within the school and in larger society (after school), and so, like in every competition, temptation to cheat becomes a reality.

This temptation is not restricted to individuals but it’s also found among schools themselves wherein some of them try to cheat to be better, or at least appear better, than their rivals.

Ownership of school has become a business venture for private entities who now compete for patronage of parents. Aiding of malpractice among students and pupils so that they will be the best in external exams has become a common practice among private schools who seek to market themselves as learning centres of excellence – genuinely or criminally,

It’s now a common practice for schools to use visual aesthetics to attract patronage in the same way marketers of goods do. This comes by way of exotic uniforms (sometimes in different shades and colours as worn across days of the week) and colourfully designed walls bearing images of children dressed as doctors, lawyers and other professionals. These schools add high-sounding tags such as “international” and “Lily Montessori” to their names just to achieve what marketers call product branding. Education has become a product to be sold. It has been seized by capitalist.

But then ponder this: our first Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Rotimi Williiams and his brother Akintola who was our first chartered accountant attended CMS Grammar School Lagos. Our great physician Prof. Anezi Okoro attended Methodist College, Uzuakoli. Government College Umuahia gave us literary giants in Chinua Achebe and Christopher Okigbo, and Central School Onitsha gave us the Zik of Africa.

These were schools that thrived on content rather than on cosmetics as seen in exotic uniforms and alluringly painted school walls. They thrived on on depth of intellection as against the inanities of children speaking in European accents or on the sheer trickery of ill-digested tags like “”international” and “Lily Montessori”.

Whenever I think of all these, I always recall with some amusement that a friend of mine, a first-rate mind and one of the best brains I have met on this planet, had his secondary education at a community secondary school in the village of Isuaniocha in Anambra State. And this was at a time public schools, as widely believed, have lost their glory. I did attend a public primary school and I emerged from there always standing among the best as I progressed through secondary and tertiary school.

Learning is both a social engagement and a personal calling where talent, interest and personal commitment are key. One thing I observed about my friend whom I mentioned above is his genuine interest in learning; you were most likely to see him clutching a book (on any imaginable area of knowledge) no matter where and on what occasion you met him. He’s a human encyclopedia and I’m sure his students at Daystar University Kenya are really benefitting.

No matter how much a parent pays to “buy” learning from the capitalist schools that dot our environment today, only the willing gets really educated and no one can excel above their gift!

Think again before you pay. Are you for education or schooling?

This is my meditation this midweek.

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.