The pursuit of success
Growing up, I was told to work hard in school and I would become successful—a code for the potbellied elites we saw riding in Toyota Prados and Land cruiser VX as we run on foot, trying not to be late for class. Yet, as I grew older, this guaranteed path to success seemed to grow dimmer by the years. College graduates are no longer guaranteed the same opportunities that our parents as graduates had. Hence, I question whether education is still the saviour my parents told me about.
The concept of conventional western education gained mainstream traction at the dawn of independence. In the rush to set up independent institutions for governance, a lot of opportunities opened up for the educated. Suddenly, this tool that the missionaries had been pushing for years seemed to transform paupers to princes. Overnight, the definition for success was changed. It was no longer the number of cattle you owned that displayed your prominence in society, but about the papers you owned and how well you spoke the coloniser’s language. Those who adapted survived and moved to the elite class. On the other hand, those who refused slowly withered as the world they knew transformed right before their eyes.
As I write, it is becoming increasingly clear that this phenomenon has taken place again. The game has changed for us too.
To our parents, education meant the way out of poverty. If you went to school and came back with your undergraduate degree, you were set. The abundance of vacancies guaranteed employment for most graduates. Today, you are lucky if you are able to find a well-paying job with your undergraduate degree. At the moment, Malawi has the second highest youth unemployment rate in the world. According to the National youth council of Malawi, 82 percent of young people aged 15-29 are unemployed. This translates to over 1.3 million young Malawians that are unemployed.
These statistics highlight the change that has taken place with regards to the pursuit of success. The painful truth is that education no longer plays the same role it played in our parents’ time. Yes, the knowledge we gain is a useful tool for processing information, but what happened to the guarantee of the good life that education once provided? A degree is no longer enough for us and the sad thing is we seem not to notice this. Children still go to school believing that education is still the same secure path to success that it granted our parents.
The world has changed. In the past, if you dropped out of school, success was but a dream. Today, billion dollar industries are spearheaded by these very same college dropouts. The recent documentary, The Startup Kids, chronicles the stories of these millionaire teens. Story after story, these youths talk about how they attained their success through exploring their passion. Yet, passion is still not a word most Malawian parents take kindly to.
Recently, I watched a documentary on one of Malawi’s Leading Fashion designers, Lilly Alfonso. In the documentary, Lily’s mother recounts how as a parent, she used to get very annoyed, when her fashion protégé daughter wore what she referred to as “zigamba”. Little had Lily’s mother known that this “annoying” habit would win her daughter awards and international acclaim in the future. I could not help but wonder how many budding musicians, painters, and entrepreneurs had been crushed by Malawian parents in the name of stopping childish folly?
It is high time that as a society, we began to embrace the idea of letting our children develop their passions, to be creative and to try something new. Undoubtedly, this is a high risk business. You are never guaranteed success. But we are living in a new era. Education alone is not enough. This is not the time to be a doctor or an engineer or an accountant. Instead, parents should start thinking of developing the next Mozart, Picasso, or Da Vinci; people who will have something unique to offer Malawians. We must remember, only those who take risks are rewarded.
