TEDxTempleU - Abiola Adeola - Education and Development
I would like to invite Abola she is a senior at Temple and she had the amazing chance to go at sea for a full semester visiting 11 countries and she will share her experience with her with us today [Music] thanks hello this evening I'm going to talk about the importance of Education in development Once Upon a Time One Man somehow succeeded in making an entire nation his personal property the man in question is King leopol III of Belgium and the nation is what is today known as the Congo how did the king of such a small European country carve out a the whole nation for himself and leave one of the darkest legacies of colonialism in Africa well he scoped out the land and he figured out what he wanted hired an agent to do the ground workor for him the agent was Henry Morton Stanley an English man well acquainted with the African Hinterland with a combination of Charisma fancy gifts and Military prowess Morton was able to convince the local Chiefs to sign away their rights and their land King liopo then used these treaties to persuade the rest of the Free World of his right to the Congo and proceeded to conquer the land of course Africans did not just sit back fold their arms and watch your land be pillaged there is a seldom told story of Chief mulam nyama and chief maanu just two of the many chiefs that fought to the death for their people's freedom now in writing this speech I started to get carried away and I had to pull myself back and remind myself that I was not called here to give you a history lesson so I will highlight one point from the story and discuss how this is relevant today looking at the story of the Congo it struck me just how critical the signed treaties were to leoo success those treaties were signed by illiterate Chiefs who barely understood what they were signing they could not read of of course it would be too simplistic to completely attribute the colonization of the Congo to the illiteracy of the Chiefs but the part that literacy illiteracy played here is real and undeniable that is the power that illiteracy had over us back in the day but our continent is still held captive to the captives to the evils of illiteracy today 38% of subsaharan African adults that is people from ages is 15 and older I illiterate compare this with the world average of 17% our continent is far behind and these numbers have not been adjusted for gender when adjusted we find that women account for a relatively larger portion of the group when broken down by country we see some even more alarming results for example 71% of adults in BINA are illiterate how exactly do these figures impact us we can all agree that development is critical to the betterment of The Human Condition right but what exactly is development economists have for the longest time defined developments in financial terms or in terms of technological advancements even though these factors are very important development involves so much more and no Nobel Laureate amatti Asen made a compelling case for this when he defined development as Freedom development is only the means to an end and the end that we actually want to obtain is freedom the high percentages of illiteracy that I mentioned earlier should bother our us because education is one of the freedoms that determine development and the rate of illiteracy is an impediment to people's freedom article 26 of the universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to education according to the UNESCO Declaration on the right to basic education as a fundamental human right the right to education is an internationally recognized right in its inter relationship with the right to freedom to in in in its inter relationship with the right to development so far I have dwelt more in ideologies so I will move on and talk about the real gains that education produces interestingly these gains are in line with the other freedoms presented by am maasen here I will quote facts obtained from the center for Global development and the 2011 UNESCO education for all report education leads to improved Health with education people are better prepared to prevent disease and to use Health Services more effectively for example young people who have completed primary education are less than half as likely to contract HIV as those with little or no schooling educated mothers have healthier children education leads to democracy and the political stability by supporting the growth of civil society and allowing people to learn about their rights and acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to exercise them education also has the potential to help break the Vicious Cycle of armed conflict and poverty and replace the fear of war with the hope of a viable future in fact an important starting point for conflict prevention and post conflict with construction is to recognize that education matters and lastly education does impact even the almighty gross national product in many poor countries with each additional year of schooling people earn 10% higher wages these earnings in turn contribute to the National Economic growth no country has ever achieved continuous and rapid growth without reaching an adult literacy rate of at least 40% so if this is a good indicator what hope is there for countries like Bina Faso Ethiopia ner and so on I hope by now I have been able to convince you that education is key but whose job is it to provide this education according to UNICEF states are ultimately accountable for providing basic education to their citizens States governments everybody's quiet every we are a generation disenchanted with the idea of government but I am a proponent of it especially when it comes to education no other organization has as much potential to solve the problems of illiteracy as the government as UNESCO says it will take decisive action by governments around the world to solve the problems of a literacy and the government needs competent people like you and me to solve these issues for too long we have wallowed in the C of apathy we have blamed all our Wes on the government but who makes up the government isn't all citizens and if all the good people run away from government how will things ever get better if dili of Nigeria had stayed out of governments do you realize how many people would have died from the use of fake drugs today some responsibilities just have to be taken care of by government and we need to be those people in government I recognize that not everyone is called to solve the problems of Education there are other perent issues like food security un employment and conflict that must be tackled in order for our society to move forward but I will however encourage us as a society to create awareness about the importance of education and pressure our governments to prioritize it the Persian American Bar mascan once said ignor and apathy are two of the most expensive deadly and destructive weapons of mass destruction in the world the care for ignorance is education the care for apathy I'll leave you to figure that one out I have been told many times that my ideas on government are idealistic but this is with good reason last semester I traveled the world on a floating University Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu was the distinguished lecture around the program and whenever he got up to address the students he would look at us giggle in his signature Desmond Tut style and tell us how much potential we had to change the world on one occasion Desmond Tutu told us he said continue to be idealistic dream dream the craziest dreams now when does mon tutu tells you that you can change the world and you should be idealistic you should just say yes sir and just go for it but for me his statements did not particularly have an impact until one day it just it just clicked he was talking to me I need to be idealistic his belief in me helped me to believe in myself but this message is not just for me in fact I sat there in that room and heard that message for a time as this where I can stand in front of African leaders and encourage you the message is for you it's for you it's for you it's for you I hope you realize how much potential is in each and every one of us to effect positive change we have the power to accomplish great feats and we cannot allow anyone to tell us different thank you