Education - The Story of Walla

What really is education? Is it what we get from school? Is what our parents and teachers teach us? Is it our extracurriculars? For starters, let’s think of education as a weapon. A weapon, comprising of everything we have learnt from the extracurriculars, from our school, from our parents, and our surroundings, to kill social problems. Take poverty, for example. Poverty is a very complicated issue. You have social scientists studying poverty, you have policymakers trying to curb poverty, you have NGOs trying to uplift people from poverty, and yet, nearly half the people in the developing world are struggling for resources, their lives tarnished by this unshaven demon called poverty.

But what if I told you that there was a solution to the problems of the 1.89 billion people living in extreme poverty? What if I told you that, to pull them out of poverty, we don’t need policies they can’t interpret, or web-portals they can’t access, or programs that may not even reach them. What if I tell you that the most complex of problems could be solved using a book, and someone teaching you how to read that book?

Education, in my view is if not the effective, one of the most effective ways to tackle the problem of poverty in your society. But don’t take my word for it. Take Anthony McDonald Tpungwuti’s. Anthony, Tippa, or Walla as he is fondly called by his teammates, plays Australian Football for Essendon Football Club. Over the years, Walla has developed from a short forward to one of the greatest players currently in the competition. But what relevance does the journey of a footballer have to do with poverty? My answer to that – EVERYTHING.

Walla was born to a very poor-middle class family out in the Tiwi Islands, that lie on the northern coast of Darwin. As a young aboriginal kid, living on an island which had little to no facilities whatsoever, an island that was so deserted that hardly 2000 people lived there, Walla grew up speaking no English, not going to school properly, spending most his time kicking a football around.

He was then thrown into a school in Melbourne, following his adoption and there he was, a ninth grader, 17 years old, with the reading and writing skills wore than that of a first grader. He used to put in hours of work everyday to ace his academics, but all of them turned futile. He had moved from a family in poverty, back in the Tiwi Islands, to a lower-middle class family in Victoria. He was bullied in school, isolated, and thought of himself as a “dumb boy”. It was truly a melancholic sight.

He was gutted that his efforts always came short. That he couldn’t solve that math sum. But then he found out why the hours he was dedicating to homework after school were not reflected in his results. There was something completely out of his control that had been secretly working against him at every turn. This “something” would be devastating for any other student. For some, it would be the end of their academic pursuit. But not for Walla.

“I had an undiagnosed learning disability. Once the teachers started helping me work in another way, I found out I wasn’t dumb all along”, says Anthony today. Having never given up on his education, having never given up on his academic pursuit, today, as one of the greatest footballers in the league, he emphasizes the need of a formal education, and motivates each and every student he comes across, to crave a formal education, and be self-sufficient, moving out of difficult circumstances, like he did.

This story though, isn’t unique to the indigenous people of different countries. It isn’t unique to Walla. No, it echoes in each and every rung of each and every developing, and developed country. In the hearts and minds of each young girl, every young boy, who will grow up to make proud their country.

With it being statistically proven that students pursuing an education have higher chances of upward mobility, earning a better livelihood than their parents, and the chances of exposure to different people, culture, races, opinions and much more, it is the need of the hour that we raise awareness to the 1.5 billion children not in school, explaining to them, the benefits of a formal education.

The children who do not get the opportunity of receiving education today will be the ones struggling with their lives tomorrow. With governments across the world planning to cut at least $210 billion, simply due to GDP declines, there is going to be a huge disparity between the students to want to learn, who are able to learn, and the students who want to learn, but simply cannot due to the innumerable constraints. And this, this inability for many to even go to school, is what makes our education system urban-biased. This leads to a select group of rich, privileged students being able to access learning, while a plethora of students are left without a basic right, a right to learn, and be educated. And if sheer information isn’t enough, take this shocking statistic - Students from the richest 20% of the society are seventeen, yes, seventeen times more likely to be studying law than those from the poorest 20%.

To counter this, obviously, organizations like the United Nations have come up with the Sustainable Development Goals, out of which the 4th goal is dedicated towards promoting inclusive and equitable learning and education for all. But how far have we really achieved SDG 4? How far are we, from truly achieving equity in education?

The answer to that question, is actually quite ineffable. I’ll leave you with this. We are as far from achieving equity in education as far as many student-led initiatives, NGOs and other magnificent organizations are from reaching their goals. Achieving their missions. When these organizations reach their fullest potential, the world will too. A world, without inequality. A world with equal education.