The question that reminded me why Education must change.

I'd been busy for weeks, writing my final-year exams and moving from one commitment to the next when I unexpectedly caught up with a friend, Haleemat, a penultimate-year finance student. She had almost given up on having a proper conversation with me. But we finally found time to sit together. As she walked me through a project she was launching, she explained its core objectives: one of them being financial literacy for the community she hoped to serve. Without realising it, I found myself effortlessly tracking her calculations and offering budget suggestions. She paused, surprised: <blockquote> "Wait, But you’re a History student. How do you know this stuff?"</blockquote>I smiled, because I get some version of that question more often than most people expect. I wasn't born with this knowledge; nobody is. I didn't learn it in a lecture hall. I discovered it almost by accident. Earlier this year, I served as VP of Finance for a project which was later rejected, but that "failure" left me with a solid foundation in basic financial literacy. It didn't come from my history curriculum. It began with a straightforward choice to leave the confines of my own discipline. That encounter immediately brought me back to a question on my special paper exam, which asked me to list the difficulties I perceive in higher education today, based on my personal experience. I want to share my four sincere, heartfelt responses with you. <h3>5. Practical knowledge should matter more than theoretical knowledge.</h3>Too much of what we learn stays on the chalkboard. It stays inside the textbook. A concept is taught, a theory is explained, an exam is passed, and yet the student never sees the thing itself. Never touches it. Never demonstrates it. Knowing that something exists is not the same as knowing how it works in real life. A student can define a concept perfectly on paper and still freeze the first time they are asked to show it, use it, or fix it. The real world does not ask you to recite. It asks you to perform. So when a graduate steps out of the classroom and into that world, the gap becomes obvious. What was theory in a textbook must now become something they can actually do.This is what I mean by practical knowledge over theoretical knowledge: less time proving what you can repeat, more time proving what you can demonstrate. <h3>4. Students need real opportunities to learn beyond their own discipline.</h3>Too many student are fluent in only one language, comfortable in only one room of a very large house. We see Law students who cannot read a public budget, Engineers who cannot navigate policy, and Agriculture graduates who understand soil yield but cannot communicate it to policymakers. Then we step out into the real world that does not organise its problems by university departments, a world that does not pause to ask what you studied before it hands you a challenge that demands everything you have. For this reason, I think every degree programme should feature a common, multidisciplinary course that is subtly integrated into every faculty, regardless of specialisation. These courses are not intended to supplant your primary field of study but to enhance it. As a result, no graduate ever stands silently in front of an open door whispering, "This isn't for me," because no one ever demonstrated that it could be. For example, in the history department, we expanded into economic history, political history, religion, philosophy, and science and technology and some disciplines that widen us beyond our core subject. Someone can build a career in a field far from their certificate, simply because they were willing to try. Meanwhile, others forfeit good opportunities, not for lack of brilliance, but because they had already decided in their own minds, This is not my area; I do not belong here. Even outside of my own circle, I have witnessed this; a medical student from another university contacted me, having difficulty with an essay competition. I'm not a med student, but the moment I saw it, I knew exactly what the topic was really asking. I showed him how to answer it with his medical knowledge, and he understood it straight away. That is the whole idea behind it. I cannot speak for every field, but I believe the outside world no longer cares only about the title on your certificate or the grade you earned, but about what you can offer and your willingness to adapt. A small, shared foundation allows us to reach across our institutional walls and make sense of what is on the other side. <h3>3. Teachers deserve to be rewarded here on earth, not just promised something in the afterlife.</h3>We've all heard the phrase, which is usually delivered with a gentle smile as if it were a complement. <blockquote>"Teachers, your reward is in heaven; only God can reward you."</blockquote>It is not a compliment, it is an excuse we have used for far too long to underpay the very people who educated every doctor, engineer, and leader we now celebrate on magazine covers and award stages. Teaching was never intended to be a hobby, nor was it intended to be used for charitable purposes. Whether we admit it or not, it is the foundation upon which all other professions are built. If we truly want our brightest minds to choose the classroom over higher-paying industries, we must make the classroom worthwhile, both financially and in terms of societal respect. Why do so few top graduates choose the teaching profession today? Perhaps they see no gain waiting for them there. <h3>2. Students who create real impact outside the classroom deserve recognition too, not just the ones who top their class.</h3>Some students may never sit at the very top of their class, and yet they spend their campus years changing the school community positively, organising drives, looking out for the welfare of others, leading initiatives, and building structures that will outlive their time on campus. Many of them hold no official title and were never appointed by the school. Right now, our institutions recognise only one currency: the Grade Point Average (GPA). But these extracurricular student leaders are raising their institution’s flag in rooms the institution itself has never entered, and they deserve to be recognised for that, not just handed a certificate for academic excellence while their community work goes unnoticed. <h3>1. Institutional support has to be genuine and consistent, not just a name printed on a policy document somewhere.</h3>We need scholarships that reach the right hands, stipends paid on time, and transparent student loans free of hidden, lifelong burdens. While initiatives like NELFUND were built with good intentions, they are being outpaced by skyrocketing tuition fees, forcing many brilliant, low-income students to drop out or suspend their studies. When institutions genuinely invest in their youth, tuition stops being a wall built to keep people out and finally becomes a door built to let them in. None of these five points stand alone, and that is really the whole point. They are threads of the same fabric. We cannot expect students to build multidisciplinary skills or drive community impact if they are constantly suffocated by financial stress, nor can we expect them to thrive if the educators guiding them are undervalued and underpaid. True educational reform isn't about fixing one broken window; it is about redesigning the entire house to face the future." <h4>Now, here is my question for you, and I would really like to hear your answer.</h4> <ol><li>What else do you think is broken in our education system today? </li><li>What would you personally change, starting right now, if you were given the power to do so?</li></ol> Drop your answer in the comments. Let us build this list together, one honest voice at a time, because reform has never once come from silence.

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