A renowned Zimbabwean preacher, philosopher and popular motivational speaker Bishop Joshua Marara Maponga III has urged young Ugandans to stop pursuing useless courses for the sake of graduation but pursue courses that will make them solution providers in their localities.
The social entrepreneur and musician blew his trumpet of decolonizing the minds of young Africans while delivering his public lecture at Victoria University on Wednesday where he urged the youth to occupy their mind with correct education.
“Improve the quality of your education, don’t go to school and school does not go through you! You come to learn and after you have studied, it does not mean that you learned, education only happens when you have put that knowledge into action,” he said.
He also advised young people that before choosing what they want to study, they must first identify their passion and this will help them to know what exactly they are going to do after school.
“Don’t come to school to study things that you are not interested in, like how our fathers did! They studied that and they are doing other things. That is us in our generation because we were told, you must be a Policeman, doctors, etc. then we went to study them but right now we are doing other things. Less than 10 per cent of our parents are actually practising in the field they studied. Because their passion was over there and their brains were not there. And your generation is fortunate because you can actually, I identify your passion,” Mr. Maponga said.
He added; “Don’t go to school to study other things, but go to school to study and improve your passion, so that you don’t work for the rest of your life! There are many people in high offices who are totally stressed Why? Because they are misaligned with who they are and what they enjoy doing don’t be a nurse if you are afraid of blood, because you will be seeing it every day, don’t be a Policeman if you don’t love people, don’t be a politician if you don’t love developing a country because you will end up putting the economy of the whole country into your pockets.”
The philosopher advised them that the profession they are taking must not drive them away from who they are. “It’s true ladies and gentlemen that many of our leaders politically, religiously and in many other ways, are there as a professional but not as a passion. They are there to make a living but they are not living a life! So what is the use of spending your entire life making a living and never enjoying the life it’s self, therefore connect your information with your passion and then translate your passion into an action plan.”
Bishop Maponga also urged young people to stop aiming at accumulating certificates on their Curriculum Vitae (CVs), instead they should focus on developing solutions that they can offer in a world full of problems.
“You don’t spend four years studying and go out of here with a CV, looking for employment, then your education is useless. If the day you graduate here, you write a CV you’re totally uneducated it simply means you have collected information but that information is not toward your transformation.”
On the issue of money, Bishop Mapongo revealed that as long as an individual identifies a solution for the community, he will get money. “Look for problems in your communities and find solutions. Stop bandwagoning on useless colonial courses. After graduation, you must come back to us as a solution, not as a problem, I have seen thousands of unemployed graduates who chose to be a teacher or a nurse because they saw the money and that’s where you messed up everything and you are going to become a nuisance to the government and to yourself.”
He added that education has to do with alignment, placing one in a space of support to improve his own country to build the African continent that is needed. “We cannot develop Africa with the tools of colonization like the current system of education. We need a different quality of students that solve problems not to bring problems.
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