O man! Forgetting that there is a school within you,

You went to the school made of bricks and blocks.

It sounds like leaving the roses in your garden,

You went to buy roses in the market,

All exposed to heat and dust of Summer.

 

Much of what we need to grasp

Or at least tract down is palpable, intuitive,

So are our everyday needs.

Humanity was not meant to race frenetically

At the cost of devastating,killing, bombing.

Is this what we are deducing from education–

The the fittest  survive and the weak perish?

Show the world that we can reach the moon

When millions of children are starving?

Just think for a while……

What are we trying to prove?

To whom and why?

 

What is the point when education

Is now producing engineers, doctors, nurses,

Teachers, scientists,architects, to mention but a few,

And as a result,we have inequalities

In opportunities, job satisfaction,unequal pay,

A spaghetti-like tangle of frustration,

Where all are confused and lost

In the tides of time.

 

Arts are fadind,

The fading of arts is sad.

Values are vanishing.

This is dangerous.

Nations are fighting, there is social unrest.

There is neck to neck competition,

Horns locked, bereft of emotions,

Half the people across the globe are underfed,

The other half depressed

And the rest know not whether

Living is better or dying is better.

 

I say, close down those schools for a while

Until it is clear in our minds

What our children should be taught

And what we expect them to be.

It is my concern as much as yours

For we are interconnected.

If we rise, we rise together,

If we sink, together we will sink.

 

Pramila Khadun