In the past two days, my sustained reflection has rested upon the issue of education. In part, this reflection was provoked by my previous post on "Surviving Independence". One area in which I and many others like me have often been excluded from in my socio-political context is that of tertiary education. We are excluded from privileges and opportunities.

Left: This is where I first received my tertiary education. Bradford, North England, 1998.

But I have also been reflecting more on the pursuit of education itself. Many people pursue undergraduate and postgraduate degrees for various reasons. In a pragmatic culture, degrees are a means to social and economic success. They are a means of enablement for one's pathway to a respectable career and abundant material and financial possessions. If this is what it means to have a degree, it's no wonder people strive hard to earn university degrees.

Amidst all this education frenzy, I wonder how many people who study for degrees are truly interested in becoming educated people in the true sense of the word. How many truly long to become cultured, morally aware, and virtuous people; to be people who do justice to the original purpose of what we call "education" today. I remember having met some very elderly people who had no formal education to speak of, but who lived their lives with a keen awareness of issues that matter. They were, in my estimation, educated.

Just because one is able to present logically coherent arguments doesn't mean that one has become a better person. How sobering it is to know that one can be embarking on a frantic pursuit for university degrees and yet remain thoroughly uneducated and culturally illiterate.