By Fr. Paulino Mondo

‘Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no’ Matthew 5: 33-37

What is education all about?

-The act or a process of acquiring knowledge, the act of imparting knowledge and the theory of teaching and learning. The biggest disability of Ugandan is not knowing their ability.

-A moment of intensive concentration and discernment so as to shape out one’s life.

-Evaluation and Assessment of an activity done by human beings over a period of time with the intention of seeing the past, judging the present and acting in the future.

-The Protagonist of the education act is the individual.

Education has to do with personal visions, integrity, courage, and facing of challenges.

 What is the rudimentary concept of education?  -A moment of:

• fundamental change
• transfer from ignorance
• shift of status
• winners and losers
• complaints with logic
• campaigns and searches for better pastures
• jumping poverty

 But what is the universal concept of education?

A moment of:

• history
• renewal
• refreshment
• growth
• conversion
• reflection

Education as good news

The world we live in at the threshold of the new millennium is full of Bad News.  It is mainly through education that we can bring the good news to this world.

 What is the BAD NEWS?

• Educated people in African countries are in prison accused of robbery, embezzlement, genocide and human hatred. Socrates once said that education is the light of society.
• Educational projects are like any other NGOs. Good reports but poor products.
• In the educated community, those mostly known get privileges. (at least just a few months ago).
• Meetings between the educated are made of quarrels instead of programs and productive theories.
• Cases of corruption and embezzlement are common among those who should stop them, just sight the Euro Bank and the saga around it.
• The commandments of God happen to be optional to some who claim to be well educated. To some, even God is optional. It is not news for the educated to get drunk and all that goes with it.
• Tribal links seem stronger than degrees, qualifications, and certificates.

The title is an EXHIBITION instead of being a genuine status of achievement.

• If an educated person can positively profit from the wrong resources, he/she can be a friend of the devil without scrupulosity.

How about the GOOD NEWS?

The GOOD NEWS is Luke 4:16-20.  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to bring GOOD NEWS to the POOR.  Poverty and Misery are not meant for the children of God because they are destined for the Kingdom of Heaven which begins HERE and NOW.  SIGHT to the BLIND especially the mentally blind who do not want to read the signs of time (history).  FREEDOM to PRISONERS especially prisoners of conscience who fight shadows instead of reality.  THE LORD’S YEAR OF FAVOUR meaning that the EVIL PAST is forgiven and canceled and a NEW FUTURE is presented on a golden plate to every human person.

Education is a Culture

• ‘Inculturation of education’ understood here as “that effort which the person makes to present the message, and values education by embodying them in expressions that are proper to each culture, in such a way that the culture and the knowledge gained from the institutions are embedded, as intimately and deeply as possible, in its own cultural context.”
• For us, an educated culture means that a Kikuyu, Lendile, Luhya or Turkana… have to be fully themselves and fully gentlemen or ladies. If there is a dichotomy between tribe and intellect, then there is no conducive culture. Our tribes are a basis for a clean education.
• It is through inculturation that education makes sense. Otherwise, we risk uprooting people who we think that before being learned friends, they were bad and after becoming educated they are excellent (angels). Inculturated education makes us citizens. A value that is higher than being good.  Educated people speak without opening their mouths because they witness.
• An educated society means communities of “MANY COLOURS, ONE DESIGN”.  In an educated community, each person must find himself at home so that there is no difference between where one comes from and where he is. The change has only to be an educational transition. Unless our academics are enculturated, people remain illiterates even if they are carrying a bunch of papers as certificates and degrees.

Education is peace

• Justice means to give each person his/her due as designed by God and society.
• Peace means love and the clear presence of God.
• For our education to be a formation of Justice and Peace, it has to be a formation of the Universal humanity of which, you the students of this institution are a key part. This justice and peace must emanate from within.  So, in planning the future of humanity, do not plan only for the present but also for those yet to come. Do not discuss to satisfy the examiners and sponsors of your education but humanity, even those you consider ignorant. Justice for the children of God is always fair. In as far as peace is concerned, you ought to reach the “Gloria conclusions” in which discussions are done through dialogue and not Protagonism.
• Justice and Peace WOULD MEAN :
• Common cause with the African woman (identifying with their hopes and struggles)
• RESPECT FOR THE ELDERLY, after all, we are all going there
• MERCY towards the sick because anybody can be a victim
• LOVE for the young because they are the future and present of the congregation
• CONSIDERATION for the authorities because good authority comes from God
• UNDERSTANDING for those in formation because they are on the way of knowing
• ATTACHMENT to the one’s place of worship because God is not irrelevant
• INVOLVEMENT in human problems in order to solve them
• WE are PLANNERS for the future because humanity must continue to live
• LOVERS of life because God is life

Education is  COMMUNICATION

• Communication is the SHARING of meaning and LIFE. Some of us limit communication to words yet communication is more vast than what we think
• It is time to communicate with our being, our looks, gestures, movements, and words
• Without communication, we are less educated.
• In the Incarnation, Jesus who was WORD became FLESH and was communicated to us.
• In order to have a meaningful future we must communicate beyond communication; meaning that everything we say, agree and disagree upon, must be for communicating REASON. How many millions of words go to waste in daily conversations and meetings?
• In our communication, we have to ask pardon for sins committed against self and society.
• It is our bad communication that has reduced our numbers, made us sour, and keeps us complaining. Bad communication can provoke death.
• Without good communication, there is no community
• Positive communication comes from an educated and disciplined person. Many Languages, One Understanding, Many cultures one Community (Acts 2:1-11).  Bad communication creates one community and many languages, like the TOWER of Babel in Genesis 11 : 1-9

Conclusion

In order for this thanksgiving to make an impact, we must put aside our tribes, selfish desires, personal priorities and behave as an educated group. If we start calling each other Luo, Tugen, Turkana, Pokot, or “WE” and “THEM” then it is the end of our history.  This is what is expected of us:

We must be people who TRUST ourselves.

• We have to be people who are WARM. Some of us are very cold that even when we communicate sense, people freeze.  It is time to allow the Holy Spirit to give us joy.  In WARMTH, communication becomes DIALOGUE to the extent that the right and wrong leave the scene happy.
• We have to be people of MUTUAL ACCEPTANCE. Any member of our society is a special gift from God. You have little alternative but to accept them; after all, acceptance does not mean agreeing all the time. You can also agree to disagree and remain happy.
• We have to be people in SOLIDARITY. This means my sister’s joys and sorrows have to be mine. Karl Rahner once said that many people live together without ever knowing each other to the extent that one can die in behavior and is discovered because of being in jail due to crime.

Education is “CONVERSION”

Conversion means metamorphosis, that from what you are, you expand and come out as NEW without losing the old. Yet the old remains without powers to reverse the NEWNESS.  Conversion for us as an educated group does not mean Catechumenate.  It is instead above it.

• INTELLECTUAL CONVERSION “so late have I discovered you! and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”   St, Augustine
• MORAL CONVERSION: Some of us see society with eyes of good and bad, to the extent of branding some as the black sheep of the family. The Jesuits are among the best educationists our society has encountered. Cf. St Ignatius of Loyola
• THEOLOGICAL CONVERSION: Life is not a repetition of what has been written but a personal experience of True God. Some of us are good at Biblical quotations and books of spirituality are at our fingertips, yet all this is borrowed material. “LEAD KINDLY LIGHT… THE NIGHT IS DARK AND I AM FAR FROM HOME…… Cardinal Henry Newman
• RELIGIOUS CONVERSION. The question of religion can be a rigorous means of personal defense and camouflage because like the Pharisees we are convinced that what people see externally is what they should believe that there is internally. From Saul he became PAUL. Aren’t we also challenged to fall from our horses?  ~ St Paul
• God has given us gifts of history, sexuality, freedom, intellect, and people. Let us use them well for our own good.

Thank God for your mum and dad, brother and sisters every day. Education leads to heath, health leads to economic development and that makes us powerful families of the people of God anywhere in this world. Know who you are and the universe will be in your hands.