The Importance of Education in the Republic of Zupta

April, the month of fools and jokes, but unfortunately the state of affairs in our beautiful country is no laughing matter at this point in time. Besides the economy that is trending harder on social media than when One Direction split up (miracles do still happen ladies and gents), another topic that is definitely not up for discussion on the ranking list of priorities, is education.

Education is a very vital tool that is used in the contemporary world to succeed. It is important because it is used to mitigate most of the challenges faced in life. The knowledge that is attained through education helps open doors to a lot of opportunities for better prospects in career growth. Where we are at in this current point in time, teachers however face some new challenges that has never before presented themselves as obstacles.

In our newly named country, the Republic of Zupta (yes, Zuma’s fourth, fifth or is it sixth holy matrimony he sealed with the Gupta-family), we have always been taught that your teacher was the hand that sculpted your dreams and motivated you to be whatever you wanted to be and it has been proven time and time again that it an actual fact. Even when I had the bizarre dream of working as an undercover agent for the FBI when I was ten years old, my teacher was the one who encouraged career days and was enthusiastic about every single little dreamer’s speech and how they wanted to fill the bank when they grow up. Teachers are selfless and put in the extra emotional mile where some learners aren’t privileged to have a solid homebased support structure that is crucial for every dream and every leader of tomorrow. However, our own president hasn’t only turned the tables, he sawed off all the feet and replaced them all with different materials. A lot of us were under the impression that our president made it all the way to Grade 6 before the thug life chose him…

However, we were very, very wrong! In a recent interview president Jacob Zuma, has told a group of Tembisa primary school pupils about the importance of education, but in the same breath how he had to educate himself. “I never went to school, but I educated myself. I’m proud of that,” he told pupils at Marhulana Primary School, one of the oldest schools in the country. It truly now makes sense why numbers appear to be such an obstacle for him. Clearly self-education does not work as well as self-medication dear president.

I would not want to be in the shoes of teachers who have to teach the youth of today that hard work is the only way to be successful. We lead by example and the example of the highest ranking in terms of careers isn’t the best one we could have asked for. As a teacher, you signed up for one of the hardest jobs in the world and even though life and circumstances are much more complex than the care-free days where children played Hopscotch and didn’t have serious psychological problems, hang in there dear teacher! Your profession isn’t the most appreciated in the world, but even if you just have one success story that comes out of your classroom that doesn’t end up only standing in a line for a social grant with ten little ones to feed, you did good. Without teachers, the hope of strong-willed learners with dreams will diminish like our once proud Rand.

Be the difference you want to see in the world and especially our country!