Education. So that?

Today we know for sure that the great problems of the world are focused on the lack of resources of the majority of the inhabitants, pollution, malnutrition or global contamination. Abnormal, especially if we compare it with the concentration of wealth in the hands of 1% of the population.

We also have clear proof that it is not a strict requirement to have gone to university to be a billionaire: proof of this is Mark Zuckerberg who did not finish his university studies, just like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Wosniak, Michael Dell or other professionals from different fields, such as Messi, Neymar, or many of the professional athletes worldwide. You may think that they have unique qualities and that may be part of the consideration, but they are and have been the product of a context that developed primarily outside the cloisters.

We also know that there are many very wise people who work, live, and act in anonymity improving life, the ecosystem, or society, regardless of whether they have studied formally or informally, building their knowledge to solve specific situations, since at the end of what is really important is the practice that improves life in all its areas, that covers specific needs, that promotes general well-being, equal rights, justice, and others.

Does this mean that going to college is useless? the answer is an emphatic NO! but let us also bear in mind that supposedly prestigious Universities such as Harvard (which I do not believe for a second is the best in the world), have created professionals capable of destroying the financial or legal systems of the entire world, with reprehensible ethics and values that do not have done any good to society in large. Consider that many professionals with their doctorates can be very selfish and greedy in their practices, to the point of bordering on crime when generating income for their companies, ventures, or businesses.

It is not a matter of whether it is good or bad to go to university, but rather that we become aware that it is not the only option for economic or social success. The decline in educational systems, with an anachronistic curriculum and modality that end up serving a totally outdated perverse system that does not produce professionals prepared to solve the real and great problems of the world, such, among many others:

• 63% of the world’s population lives on less than US$1,5 K per year.
• According to the United Nations, 20 percent of the world’s population, the equivalent of 1,320 million people, concentrates 82 percent of the world’s wealth in their hands. Meanwhile, the poorest, some one billion people, survive with just 1.4 percent of the world’s wealth.
• About seven million people die each year from exposure to fine particles in polluted air, which penetrate deep into the lungs and cardiovascular system and cause diseases such as strokes, heart disease, cancer, and more.
• According to NASA data, in 1880 the average temperature of the planet was -0.16°C and there is a 20% chance that in 2024 we will exceed 1.5°C.
• According to a study published in Science Advances, the world loses about 500 species of mammals every 50 years.
• According to UNICEF: At least 1 in 3 boys and girls under the age of five (200 million) in the world are undernourished or overweight.
• The questions then are: what kind of human being do we educate? What kind of society are we creating? What do we need to know in order to solve the big problems of the Planet? What are the needs that will have to be met in the world in the medium term?

Educational structures, dissociated from the real problems, conflicts, needs, or immediate requirements, which are not based on ethical values, with tools to understand the role of each individual in the «whole» of nature and the future of humanity. This should give way to an education based on principles, flexible and empowering of the practical, enterprising, compassionate, empathetic professional, who knows themself, their rights, and obligations, considering their development within the world in a systemic way.

Today, we have the means to choose, what and where to study. Virtuality has given us tools to be able to do it in any place or language, it has also helped us go through complex situations such as the Pandemic, and has the possibility of achieving a synergy never before possible, with algorithms that not only focus on concentrating resources on few hands, or war; but that is in the service of improving interaction, prediction and the development of sustainable global policies. Those of us who have the privilege of living in societies that allow us to educate ourselves have a moral obligation to do so, not only to improve our standard of living but to carry out projects that help improve the lives of most human beings and animals in a viable ecosystem. If your contribution does not add value, it will cease to exist.