It amazes me to see and hear the differences in attitudes towards education.
A 14 year old girl (Malala) in Pakistan knows the importance of education….”Gunmen have wounded a 14-year-old rights activist who has campaigned for girls’ education in the Swat Valley in north-west Pakistan.” (more info on this story can be found here at the BBC)
While here in Kenya we have students rioting because they don’t want to be in school. They burn schools, destroy property, steel from other students and make it bad for those who actually want to be in school.
Malala is in critical condition because of her courage to go to school in spite of threats to her life. While here a student was killed in a fire (at our boys’ secondary school) because a group of boys didn’t want to take exams.
Why does one group have the belief that education is important, important enough to put their life on the line, while another feels it’s a burden on their lives? Chuck and I continually express how important education is to our kids here, either by telling them or showing them (one way is by having tutors at home to help them in school). And that doesn’t necessarily have to be a traditional education, but trade school or apprenticeship.
I pray Malala, along with all the other “voices for education”, is strengthened by God’s power and grace to continue to speak up for education.