12 Years in Prison

Warning : Long Post Ahead

First of all, I apologize for not being able to write earlier than this. This inconvenience is only fractionally the fault of myself, and mostly due to circumstances out of my influence. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank Sleepless and his team for their effortless works on the making process of this blog and hope that it will turn out as they please.

I wanted my first appearance here to draw the truest image of me and carve it as a first impression. An extremely angry individual. No extremely angry individual is born one. It's a painful process in which one or many factors come into play in carefully carving patience and consciousness out of that individual leaving behind an extremely flammable human being. Here, I tell the story of the factor that I'm the result of.

For most of the past 12 years, I've been a student studying under the educational system orchestrated by the Ministry of Education. After I've completely finished with it, I took time to digest the value of my time and effort there. Wasted. The people in charge made sure it went that way. This, non-arguably, left me deeply frustrated, which intersects to only one of two paths. Depression and surrender, or Anger. I've chosen the latter, and that my friends, is the factor that bred the anger you see today.

I've always thought of school as where I could go to ask questions, not to get asked questions. The Ministry Of Education has improvised an educational system inspired from the advanced elaborate educational systems from the Western world. They stole a small proportion of the application in those systems, and disregarded many important parts in the operating mechanisms of these systems. They also disregarded to learn the purpose of these important parts and how the desired result only comes from the correct integration of all these parts.

This improvised strategy has so far not been successful and did not create any notable change in the way education touches us. From one part the proceedings are constantly revised without noteworthy outcome and from the other, the curriculums and methods are completely disregarded and neglected. This, instead of paving our way into the future left us steadily falling towards ignorance.

I, as an Omani citizen, just like any citizen would, expect three things from my country. Education, Opportunity, and Peace. Education has clearly left me very well disappointed. Opportunity, is bound with education, and since the first one is a rotten apple, it ruined the entire box. That, too, was a disappointment. Peace, as much as I'd like to say I'm not disappointed, I can't. Knowing that there's a number of ill-educated disappointed people, it's just a matter of time until I feel ripped from the luxury of peace. It's starting to becoming worryingly evident these days as proof of that withdrawal.

Am I disappointed on being an Omani citizen ? Yes, maybe I am. I'm only a little disappointed about the things I said above. The larger disappointment comes from the fact that in terms of Education, the system has taken a wrong turn in every possible one. The system failed in being the very foundation of our future commitments towards the betterment of this blessed country.

But It's very difficult not to tackle these commitments. The foundations of our future have been rattled because Education has refused to be part of that journey. It has refused to understand how education is not a burden, but rather an investment. This refusal has developed a mentality that plays counter to our potential as a country. A mentality that left old men with old short vision in places of decision making, and refusing to let them go when it's time to. A simple mistake, that also caused the advancement ladder to stop short from target, which eventually created no new opportunities for the newer generation. Unemployment.

That would make sense of why governmental based colleges are considered so low in terms of quality. It isn't a safe investment for the government to consume financial and strategic resources that will not return beneficial. If you don't put effort in something, don't expect a good result from it. That's why we will never be in par with the country which is geographically that closest to us. The United Arab Emirates. Despite the little resources they have in comparison with our country, they've moved forward where we halted. Their firm belief in proper investing has paid them well, where our lack of investing has returned us with a lack of resulting.

It's time that we lay off the people who're having a hard time of understand modernization and change them with young people who have lived that modernization and not only witnessed it. It's time that we stop making the stupid mistakes we do with education. Stop building two schools, with two one-hundred class rooms, and two 1000 chairs and two everything. It's time we stop the sexual segregation mayhem and start making people understand that females will work alongside men in building this country and their refusal to do that should be accompanied with refusal of educating them. It's time we make just as much university graduates as school graduates. It's time we build more governmental colleges of high quality and equipping them adequately. It's time the Ministry of Higher Education enforces boundaries on private colleges and sees that the Six Million Omani Riyals granted yearly from his majesty to each private college in Oman is spent in favor of the Omani students, instead of against him when they raise their fees. It's time that we stop biting more than we can chew, stop stealing incorrectly from the west. Their systems are already established and ours are far from that, we should create a system which caters to our needs and not theirs. It's time we stop the joke that is the Higher Education Admission Center is, which basically is a multi-million-rial computer software program which ranks the students who are statically the most adequate in taking benefit of the governmentally allocated scholarships. No where in the world does a computer decide the acceptance for a scholarship and I dread the day that a probability software decides the fate of a human beings future. Take away HEAC, it's an immense waste of money and efforts. There's no way a computer with a software do what a human does with an interview. It's time we update the curriculums. Make them more digestible and relevant, and delete what isn't. Pay attention to teachers and professors, and honor their fine profession. They've taken a journey towards the greater good, instead of one towards self-fulfillment and that my friends, is a great sacrifice.

His Majesty Sultan Qaboos said in one of his speeches that knowledge without mind is like a fruitless tree. Not in defiance, but in contrast, I say a mind without knowledge is too like a tree. A dying one. It's our moral, social and national obligation to prevent that from happening. We have to make changes no matter what impracticalities they may face at first, because when its starts to produce, it will produce well. It will produce people who will be able to power this country the way it should.

In conclusion, I have to say that a person that can't do Maths or Physics does not necessarily have to be a person with little potential. Everyone has a way to project their intelligence, and only little of them can do maths. Intellectual adequacy does not have to necessarily be a product of academic ability. Issac Newton was not sitting on a school desk when the apple fell from the tree unto his head triggering the thought that later created the pillars of modern Physics. Albert Einstein failed his university entrance exam and had to wait an entire year before he can retake it and that did not stop him from creating a scientific revolution, which some of it's theories still mystify scientists today. Woody Allen failed his Film Production class in university before he later become one of the most recognized and distinguished people in the film industry and an Academy-Awarded director, producer and writer. Instead of standing still, let's take a step to the front with the right foot.

Thanks.