QUALITY EDUCATION: BRIDGING THE GAP by Okorougo MaryAnn

What an elder sees while siting, a child will not see even while standing on a raised
platform, an adage which connotes the difference in education and quality education. According
to Donald Duke “education is to produce a generation of entrepreneurial, innovative and
productive people, but the kind and essence of it, is the nature or type of education received”.

Quality is the high standard of something compared to other similar things. The quality of
a product distinguishes it from its competitors which in the actual sense are no more in
competition with it. It shows the highest of anything. Education is the process of teaching,
training and learning in schools, colleges, universities and any other place geared towards
improving knowledge and developing skills.

Quality education is one that provides all learners with capabilities necessary to become
economically productive, develop sustainable livelihood, contribute to peaceful and democratic
societies and enhance individual wellbeing. Value based education envisages a learning
environment wherein students perform better not only in academic results, but also facilitates
their overall development, the type that makes you think and ask necessary questions like why?
Why not? What if? Should we? In this case, the wealth that we have received do not end the way
it originally was handed down, not a case of regurgitating what we have been given to rather, it is
to be exploited positively to make it workable in the society.

In our communities presently, everyone is focusing in passing one examination or the
other, maybe that worked 50-60 years ago, but not anymore because the present world is a board
of innovation, which is why those who have invested in not just education, but quality learning
have to a great extent created an environment of well co-ordinated, supporting facilities.
Looking at the technologies that exists today, the cell phones sending instant messages,
technologies borne from the what ifs and why not questions, these inquisitive minds, bridging the
gap of yester years.

Scientific breakthroughs in areas seen as impossible such as invitro fertilization, Organ
transplant, treatment of pandemic diseases which has in the past wiped out hundreds of
thousands of lives, life-saving discoveries through meteorology, allowing for evacuation of
communities before floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters, these understanding of the
environment with its different elements have educated us more about the different places we call
home, avoiding future occurrences of past disasters, allowing farmers plan their planting
operations to know when and when not to plant, enhancing their local environment to

accommodate foreign crops, avoiding spread of pest and diseases, preventing total loss of
produce.

In social sciences and humanities, it has helped to shape civilized societies, where we
understands the purpose of life, peaceful co-existence and the right to life and live in different
communities. In another 30 or 40 years, any society that cannot think out this value added
learning system, will be no more than those that lived in the dark ages and can be said to be
completely out of the real world.

The method of teaching today in our different nations should move from impersonal
system to a personal one since it does not present what is needed. The teacher must interface
with students, making effort to develop the smallest aptitude of each individual.

To conclude, the plan for sustainable future starts now and not when it is upon us, the
need to review our knowledge and skills acquisition systems is imminent, starting from the early
stages, where students should be trained to solve real and practical problems and not just to excel
on paper, the understanding of bridging the gap for sustainable future, enshrined in our learning
process.