ALBERTON-In my 65-years I have met many people, black, white, coloured and Indian, with no tertiary education who hold successful jobs and have built successful businesses – because tertiary education has never been a privilege and cannot possibly be a free for all.
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My father raised five children. Without the so-called privilege of having a tertiary education he started his own successful business – yet, his children worked and paid their own way into their successful careers. My children had to do the same and they hold successful careers.
I have come to know young people, or rather youth as they prefer to be called, who have raised above their circumstances and started up their own, very successful ventures.
It is a noble thought to say free education for all. But have these ranting and raving students, screaming and chanting for free education for all, ever stopped and asked themselves the following questions:
1. Who will then pay your lecturers or teachers? Or are you going to enter your classrooms without a lecturer and expect your education to be perfect – free maybe but no education?
2. Who will ensure the upkeep of your institutions or schools? Your education may then be free but where will you get this education?
3. Who will pay for the equipment needed for those studying science and music for instance? No fees charged and yet no equipment to learn anything anyway.
In their rampage they have vandalised the property of their institutions which have to be replaced and repaired. Are they going to pay for it out of their pockets to ensure their free education? Most definitely not. So, once this has settled down, the next march and protest will most probably be about the broken and vandalised institution which is not 100 percent functional but let’s not forget who is responsible for the damage.
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Then maybe one should also ask if all the other private institutions like the smaller colleges and institutions offering life skills training and skills training for people like fitters and turners, should also close their doors? Should these people shut down their business because they saw a gap in the market and made their success? Should they pay it forward and offer their skills for free simply because the majority of the non-thinking youth think that it is their privilege to go through live on a free ride?
It is time that South Africans wake up and stop expecting to hold their hands out and just receive, receive, receive and do nothing to earn and reap the rewards the many possibilities this wonderful country of ours hold for all of us.
Just asking
