"School has played an important role in my life", Arnaud A., Benin
"School has played an important role in my life insofar as it has enabled me to build my personality. School as I experienced it is not very different from what it is today.
Education is a source of knowledge and human development. Today, an illiterate person is considered an "underling".
In 30 years' time, schools should be vocational training centres: everyone should come out of them knowing how to do something. I would like to see vocational training developed at all levels, starting at primary school. Children need to be directed towards training that enables them to develop their skills. Computers and the Internet need to be integrated into the education system.
Sènakpon Gérard Guedegbe: "Education is the most important act because it prepares the younger generation".
For me, education is the most important act because it prepares the younger generation to take over the development of the country. When I was 30, education was a major preoccupation in my professional life because I was already actively working as a journalist on promoting education through media action.
In 30 years' time, I would like to see an education system that places much greater emphasis on vocational training, education for life, infrastructure development and adapting training programmes to the realities of today's world.
Quing Wu, 73: "The root of education is to give birth to free and independent minds".
At the age of 30, I had been teaching for 8 years. But I never had the time to devote to achieving my personal goals. It was at this time that the Great Cultural Revolution broke out. It turned our whole society upside down. Many households lost everything, whole families were separated, people were labelled as right-wing in an authoritarian way and wanted by the authorities. Neither my parents nor my brothers managed to escape. I was sent to a re-education through labour camp. The tragedy I experienced made me realise how much I wanted to contribute to the development of democracy in society.
There's a lot of pretence in our society, people who say one thing at the front and the opposite at the back. They work for the authorities and are only trying to silence us. This has given me the energy to go further and further to advance rights in our country.
Education in China has been ruined by the various political movements. The root of education is to create free and independent minds. But education in China does not have this objective. As a member of the development association for rural women's culture, I had the opportunity to give many speeches at university and to meet many students. I realised that they had a distorted view of reality, of the world in which they live. The Chinese education system as it is today, in other words, biased, has prevented them from understanding what living in society really means.
