Jar of Juice

It makes me sad to see the wasted amount of potential leaders, scientists, braniacs and people with inhuman levels intelligence.

Like Qwaider mentioned, schools have mostly become a social status – how much your family can really afford. We have grown a mentality where when someone says “I graduated from Oxford” is perceived as a God and one who says “I graduated from Damascus University” would probably be annihalated on the spot.

Lots of institutions, I am sure, do not offer an education up to par with the price tag. Here in Dubai there was a haitus over a recent (and, as usual, unexplained) price hike in one of the schools. The government eventually had to jump in and regulate price hikes the schools can get depending on their perfomance as a school – which seems fair but the means of measure might probably be flawed.

There were many truly dumb idiots in my university, and I don’t mean only academically (not smart vs intelligent) but the only reason they were on campus is because their families could afford it and they happened to pass the TOEFL test, on the third time. “Non profit organizations” feed on people with big wallets who are willing to pay anything for social recognition.

If that seems appalling, take a look at this story. This girl was thrown out of class because her mother did not have enough money to pay the fees because she is unemployed (the semester is almost over). The humiliation! To be denied education when you had nothing to do with it. I am appalled beyond measure, among with the hundred of people writing Gulf News an email right now or have commented.

In my job I got to see many people arriving, as we called them, “a package”. You get to hire someone with all sorts of three and four letter acronym certificates, but give them a task and they’d do everything written on the “Do NOT do the following” list at the end of every chapter given in the book.

So, what’s up?

Some people buy their certificates (fraud), some people buy it in the sense of paying for the education and not learning. Others pay loads of money on false promises – regardless of potential. And then you get the group of people who cannot afford education but have so much potential if given the chance. The idea of “poor people are dumb” stems from the fact that they were never given the opportunity to be educated at any age.

There’s a huge debate on whether education should be free, and whether it becomes socialism if it is, or if the quality is rendered abysmal when the government pays for it.

This is not what I am talking about here.

I am talking about the opportunity to educate people, and to have a better responsibility of selecting candidates to enroll based on their potential and wit rather than wallets. There is a social responsibility towards the community and towards education. I understand the schools have operating costs and wages to everyone working there, but come on. Throwing a girl out of class for 500 dollars? “If we allow one we should allow all” – I understand, but throwing the girl out in the middle of her class, in front of everyone, isn’t the way to solve this issue.

I would really love to see a private university or college or school dedicate a class that’s free for all, general education. If every school in the country does that, imagine how many kids would learn something new every term. Granted, they might not end up as “intelligent” as those who are paying and are getting a full education, but in the long run the average level of knowledge in the population will go up.

Or am I too utopic?