Education institutions should teach students to "think like a winner"

 

 

Reading the New Vision of May 22, 2014, “A work by the Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA), the report shows that of the total employers interviewed in Uganda, only 37% were satisfied with Ugandan graduates.

 

The rest 63% faulted the graduates, saying the employees they had hired for the past one year hadn’t been adequately prepared by their pre-hire institutions”. 

 

I also read in the New Vision, the Managing Director of DFCU bank requesting employers to give room to workers to be creative and innovative. Deep in my heart, I was asking myself, but how will people innovate if they are not trained to think and think extraordinarily? 

 

Apparently, Dr. Staples in his books, says the “the programmatic explanation for the public’s resistance to applying self-improvement techniques of collecting, studying, assimilating and applying all of the relevant information is simply too burdensome a task for the average person. 

 

Also, Henry Ford, the famous American Industrialist commented, “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probable reason why so few engage in it. 

 

The major challenge facing our schools is competing for good grades. I hear some schools have reached an extent of giving students questions papers and teach answers to the questions directly in order to perform well during UNEB exams. In some universities, the situation is not any better. Students are not taught to learn, research, think, and think broadly, as long as they can get a pass mark, that’s it. No wonder they are not prepared for the job market!

 

Our schools do not teach students how to accumulate great wealth, how to develop a positive mental attitude, how to make dreams come true, how to be creative and innovative and so on. Much as Schools have tried to bring on board career guidance program which is good, but this is not enough. The “think like a winner” program should be introduced in schools so that the student’s mindset is tuned to winning from the time they enter school up to the end.

 

Students should be guided to think and believe that they are destined for great achievement and they should also be made aware that they can become a blend of many talents and abilities. One can become a lawyer as well as a sports person and as well as a computer wizard as well as a linguistic and so on. 

 

Dr. Staples says that, Success is not an accident. He notes that all people are made from the same mold and blessed with life and have potential for high achievement. That we all have a unique mix of talents and abilities that usually go underdeveloped and underutilized.

 

For instance, I know someone who used to work as a Data Supervisor, yet she had trained in Social Work and Social Administration, she had also studied secretarial so her reports would be made quite timely, then later on she worked as a Programs Officer, a Trainer, a Counselor as well as Monitoring and Evaluation Officer.

 

She was also a writer of some sort. So you can see such a multiplicity of talents and abilities all in one person. 

 

Our education institutions can surely help the students to think, to exercise their abilities and talents, to set bigger goals and guide them on how to progressively attain these goals.

 

The students should also be guided to develop an abundance mentality.  Dr. Staples notes that the belief in scarcity is a fatal error. It is wrong to think that if you succeed, another must fail. If you are prosperous, someone else must be poor. Such a person thinks there isn’t enough love, enough jobs, enough business, enough money, and enough success.

 

That scarcity is the mother of selfishness, jealousy, aggressiveness, and resentment. All of its effects are negative. On the other hand, abundance is the mother of prosperity, creativity, kindness and love. All of its effects are positive.

 

If students learn to think and set goals, they will create their own employment during holidays and even after University without having to look for jobs which are nowhere to come by.

 

Dr. Staples further notes that “whatever you believe, picture in your mind and think about most of the time, you eventually will bring into reality”.

 

So Education institutions, do the needful and help the young generation to think like winners and trust me, most parents would be ready to support this program.