Next generation at risk due to education crisis

I would like to thank Gideon Lasco for his wise and moving words (“I weep for our children, Second Opinion, 1/12/24).

The emerging “educational emergency” of the coming generation in the Philippines will cause major problems in the future. The new, questionable heroes of this youth are also unpredictable. When I was a teenager, I admired people like Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Che Guevara, Mahatma Gandhi, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Today, their heroes are influencers, TikTokers, and dancers. Most of the time it’s about something trivial or even dangerously stupid.

There is so much educational content available on the internet through Wikipedia, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, as well as many opportunities to read and learn. Without education, young people have no chance of a life worth living. You don’t learn to question what already exists and take everything for granted “because it’s always been that way” or because someone says that’s just the way it is. A waste of human intelligence and creative thoughts. Imagination is also crippled in such a desolate world, which is like a desert without an oasis.

But a lot has been missed during the pandemic, and it’s right that Lasco addresses this. Being the last country to return to everyday school life is certainly no glory. The Philippines could be so much more than what it currently is. The bright minds are there, they just aren’t being supported. Like a diamond that needs to be cut until it reveals its full beauty. All these bright minds remain unsupported and therefore they remain caterpillars forever and never become butterflies.

The next generation of academics, scientists, and intellectuals is at great risk. How is the country supposed to compete with its neighbors? Many people have high intellectual potential, but this is not developed. It will never find any application. This doesn’t benefit anyone, not the person affected and not society either. Unbelievable damage. These children will never be part of society and will experience exclusion. Reminds me of the line from John Lennon’s “Imagine”: “Imagine all the people sharing all the world.” For many Filipino children, there will never be sharing because without education all doors will be closed to them.

I weep, too, for our children.

JÜRGEN SCHÖFER, Ph.D.
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