Do we appreciate our education?

Ruth Webb argues that young people in the UK do not realise how easy they’ve got it when it comes to education.

''In Kibera pupils study during their lunchtimes. They are eager and enthusiastic because they understand that they have had a fantastic opportunity to attend school.''

Do we appreciate how lucky we are in the UK to have the opportunity for free education up to the age of 16 with qualifications at the end of it all? Unfortunately the majority of people, including me, would answer that no, we probably don’t. Students in secondary schools in the UK arrive at 9.00 am. Students in Tanzania have to arrive early to clean the school and prepare the water for the day before lessons can even start. Can you imagine that happening in our inner city schools?

The differences do not end there. Many pupils in compulsory education don’t want to learn and tend to see school as either a social occasion where attendance to lessons is virtually non-existent, or as a chance to muck around and torture their poor teachers in a bid to look cool and improve their gang credibility.

In Kibera pupils study during their lunchtimes. They are eager and enthusiastic because they understand that they have had a fantastic opportunity to attend school. Would we ever think we were that lucky to attend school? In Zambia the government scrapped tuition fees for primary education, but the quality of teaching is still very low. This is due to the Zambian government’s debt – it is paying a massive $337 million on debt repayments, $25 million more than it did on education - meaning it cannot afford to recruit its own trained teachers.

The Times Christmas appeal this year raised money for the Freeplay foundation in order to buy wind-up and solar powered radios for children in Africa. As the quality of teaching is low the radios were desperately needed to help educate children about Malaria and AIDS. This is a vital step forward for education in developing countries. It shows how simple it is to improve a child’s quality of education. Not only does education help the country’s economy but, as proven in this case, it also helps to prevent health problems such as HIV and malaria.

Without education how can children really be expected to know what is fact and what is fiction when it comes to things like their health? With good education all this can change – but it cannot happen whilst governments are spending more on debt repayments than they are on education.

I’m sure that if students in the UK realised the hardship of not having an education or having to walk miles each day to attend a school with 50 children in each class, we would value the small parts of education: a free school bus; free books and equipment; and high quality teaching for all no matter what your colour or class. Next time you walk into a classroom – think. You are one of the luckiest people in the world. You have an education.