TERTIARY EDUCATION
ISMAIL LAGARDIEN: More money will not fix higher learning
There’s a response I once gave someone who, for most of the past 35 years or so, had asked me for a loan or a financial bail-out more often than I can recall. I have written off most of those loans as part of what is colloquially known as a "black tax". This "tax" is one of the obligations you have when you are one of the few people in an extended family who has had the privilege of a regular income over an extended period of time. Anyway, one response I once gave when I had to bail out this person for the nth time was quite blunt: "A lack of money is not what got you into trouble. Money won’t get you out of trouble." It was harsh, I know, but I also knew that this person had made several bad decisions and that he had some very bad habits, the least of which was an addiction to gambling. One should not be too sanctimonious about bad decision making. What I will say, though, is that the inceptive purpose of education starts with learning to speak, read, write and understand.Recall th...
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