The vision to do great things will eventually bring accomplishments

Fri Jan 04, 2013

Editor: There has been much dialogue in the last several months about the global job market, graduates acquiring credentials with limited job opportunities, particular in SVG, the ongoing question as to the purpose of an “education revolution” and the various leadership directions of governments. Whatever the case, we should never detour our focus from what our parents repeatedly said: “They can take away your treasures, but they can never take away your education, your wisdom, skills and ambition”.{{more}} One has to always remember that having the fortitude, will, potential and the vision to do great things will eventually bring accomplishments.

We are not here to look for a job, but to make jobs. If you have the mindset to get an education in order to get a job, then you have already failed. One should not be ready to sit down and accept a job; they should always have the vision of developing a job or many jobs. It takes a certain type of person to create and lead a project, another type to follow it after it has been started. It also takes a certain type of person to revolt. All characteristics are necessary for the development of a community and a progressive nation.

When your parents invest in your development by training, nourishing and educating you, then it becomes your responsibility to make a living for yourself. The challenges of moving forward are to ask yourself a twofold question as to: how your education would benefit you and your community and how do you make your education functional? Be reminded that your education is something that is saleable to the community and not just an education of decorated credentials.

Can one do economics without an imagination? In the lecture room, as a teacher, his/her mandate is to bring to the forefront what’s in the book. However, as a preacher, you have to present in such a way that people can see how they can use what you are saying to make a better life. A historian knows the past, but how does he/she apply the history to the future?

Everybody is worried about the future and everybody is looking for leaders with a vision. The question is, if you have a spying-glass and I do not have one, who can tell the better future? What is important is giving something to someone so that they can move on with their life. The “Education Revolution”, if utilized in the proper form, provides you that opportunity in which you have something to stand on, a bridge on which you can pass over. Education is the development of skills by which one can make a living.

Having grown up during the sixties in a windward village of SVG, being aware of the class differences stemming from the remnants of colonialism and the disadvantages to further education, brings me much admiration for the “education revolution initiative”. What has become apparent is the overtone of comments sparked, following my point-of-view of November 30, 2012 in the Caribbean News Now, subject “SVG Forever Forward Never Backward.”

Here is a comment that illustrates the obstacle to the development of a people….

“Someone sent me the “SVG forever forward, never backward” article and asked “What does this article say?” I had not read it. After scanning it, I am afraid that I still cannot answer the question!

Coincidentally, I have not read Dr Adrian Fraser’s article either. He supposedly was discussing some issues regarding another of our BGS classmates, Dr Ralph Gonsalves.”

“I shall never comment on any of their positions, since (1) as very intelligent and learned classmates, I am positive that they have rendered logical, rational and understandable points of view, and (2), as my grandmother used to say, “stay out of other people business.”

Well, am I ever fortunate that I am not one of those “BGS (Boys Grammar School) classmates”? The risk that comes with being a community advocate for nine years brings very little surprises, as even then I do not look at it negatively. I praise those individuals for giving their views or when you so choose to share your thoughts on any issues. But when certain persons who thought that they were in the top of society seem to have now been challenged by others who now have what they thought they alone had, their motive is to frustrate progress.

As quoted by Dr Fraser in his Searchlight opinion column of December 7, 2012. “This obviously describes a particular mindset and says a lot.”

Elma Gabriel
Community Advocate (Toronto)