Editor,

RE: "Why our education fails on its promise” (The New Times, February 8).

No matter the starting point, even if jaundiced, any form of education is good enough as long as it sharpens the faculties of the learner. The intention and ideology of the educator after a certain point is irrelevant.

Suffocating education systems in communist countries turned out hordes of independent and sharp thinkers despite the best efforts of the system. A sharpened mind, like a sharpened knife, can cut anything including the sharpener.

The values argument is spurious at best. A sharp mind can and should interrogate them.

Imboko Ndiranga

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So Carter Godwin Woodson wrote a masterpiece, The Miseducation of the Negro.

"When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.”

Education is programming. Africa needs to re-programme herself accordingly. Sharp or blunt knife, dear Imboko Ndiranga, is irrelevant. All that matters is how one has been programmed and conditioned to make an incision.

Ggwanga Mujje