Fired-up about education
by Kevin Jenkins, president and chief executive officer – WVI
Just a generation after Christ, the Roman polymath Plutarch said of education, “The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.”
Fashions in teaching come and go, but this concept of education as a spark that can set alight an individual life, and a society, remains uncontested.
Many of us can remember a teacher who inspired in us a desire to learn, rather than simply filling our minds with facts. My grade three teacher, Mrs Sloan, did that for me. In addition, she detected that I had a minor speech impediment and encouraged my mother to take me to a speech therapist to have it addressed. Mrs Sloan took an interest in me, believed in me ... and made a major contribution to building my confidence.
Children in developed countries take schooling for granted, while millions of children around the world have no access to that vital, life-changing spark.
In our development work we know that education is a key building block for a child's future. It's one of our Child Well-Being Aspirations, and it’s rightly there. We have recently taken significant steps forward in measuring the outcomes of our educational interventions rather than simply counting the number of children in school. In our own way we are focusing on the wood that needs igniting, not just filling vessels.
I was reminded recently that we cannot allow education to become just another part of our development 'routine'. It's easy to lose track of the profound difference between having access to education and not having it.
At the Asia Pacific Forum in August, an Indian teenager from a community where World Vision works gave an excellent 10 minute presentation, without notes, on the priority needs of the children in her community. After the presentation, she was asked how she first encountered World Vision. She paused for a long time before trying to speak. She started crying. But she declined the opportunity to leave the stage, because she had something she wanted to say.
Eventually she told us that her mother had refused to let her go to school.
"What's the point of a poor girl going to school when she is going to get married young and work in her husband's home?" her mother had demanded. She pleaded with her over a long period, but to no avail.
World Vision learned of the girl's situation and set about persuading her parents that education is a good thing for every child. They made arrangements for her to get admitted to school.
Her tears, she told the Forum, were no longer of despair, but of gratitude. The impact on her has been so profound that she can barely speak about it.
World Vision’s work in providing education is not about filling schools with furniture, books and children. It is about lighting a million small fires and giving thanks for a blaze that will change children’s futures in ways we can’t imagine.