The value of education--preach to me!

Today (Wednesday) was the official Academic Opening at Polytechnic. Classes were canceled for 1.5 hours, and chairs set up in the biggest parking lot on campus. A stage was erected. Sun shades were unrolled. A choir showed up (I didn't know Polytechnic had a choir--they are very good).

The Rector spoke. The chairman of the Board of Directors spoke. The Honorary Dr. Theo-Ben Gurirab spoke. The latter gentleman is the current speaker of Parliament. He was prime minister of Namibia from 2002-2005, and served as SWAPO's rep to the United Nations. He served as President of the UN General Assembly in 1999.

I was struck by three things during the Opening.

First, Namibians have a beautiful National Anthem. If you want to hear another crowd (not our crowd today) singing it, you can go here. But, our crowd sounded pretty much like the crowd in the video link.

Second, the students are respectful. It started to rain lightly during the Honorary Dr. Gurirab's speech. Very few people bolted for the sidelines. Umbrellas popped up, and most stayed put.

Third, Namibians value education. Each speaker made a point of talking about how Namibia was not going to join the world's economic powers through sale of their natural resources. Namibia, the speakers suggested, can only join the world through wealth creation that happens through education. Plea after plea to students to study hard and join the quest to improve the country. "It is your duty." "It is your responsibility." "It must happen for Namibia to prosper." In fact, the Poly's theme for this academic year is "Wealth Creation in the New Economy".

I couldn't agree more with the speakers--there is a massive gap between those with a lot and those with little in the country. And, education will bridge that gap to some extent. Closing that gap depends on some other political things happening, as well.

But, hearing education being touted as so critically important was so new to me. We don't preach to our students in Nebraska that their state is depending on their new ideas and contributions. And, of course, Nebraska is depending on them. Maybe not to the extent that Namibia is depending on these young people in the photo, but Nebraska (and IA and MA and TX and OH...) certainly are depending on our next generation. Especially in the field of natural resource manaement--issue after issue after issue is dependent on scientists helping to frame decisions, to support decisions with information, and to 'invent' new solutions to complex problems.

Maybe it's time for us to start preaching a bit? Do our students realize how important they are? Do they realize the magnitude of their opportunity to attend college and get a degree? After today, I'm guessing perhaps, on average, not as much as the students sitting next to me at Polytechnic's Academic Opening.