Opinion

Lifelong education and learning can change the world

  Andrea Begley winner of The Voice UK graduated from Queens with a Master's in Law and Governace, pictured with her Aunt Roisin Jordan the GAA's first ever female chairperson
  Andrea Begley winner of The Voice UK graduated from Queens with a Master's in Law and Governace, pictured with her Aunt Roisin Jordan the GAA's first ever female chairperson   Andrea Begley winner of The Voice UK graduated from Queens with a Master's in Law and Governace, pictured with her Aunt Roisin Jordan the GAA's first ever female chairperson

It's hard to find words which adequately measure the pride bursting in my heart as my eldest daughter Deirbhile graduated in July. It's one of my highlights from 2015.

Sitting high up in the Waterfront Hall's auditorium beside my other amazing daughter Ríoghnach, the magical memories and moments of her 21 years in life flitted around me like fireflies.

The energy and capacity of our young people all across this society leaves me frequently awe-struck - watching them step fearlessly forward; overcoming incredible challenges; conquering fantastic achievements; demonstrating intense courage, almost all without second-thought.

That's why we must start recognising their greatness - and even their potential for greatness - with much more passionate persistence than we currently exhibit, not least because their greatness is ultimately our future.

That goes for young people graduating from university or college. It also goes for those young people who choose different paths, or whose life opportunities are unfairly restricted by the unequal power structures of society but who still forge a great future (through many wonderful community centres of education, such as Springhill Community House and Conway Mill in west Belfast).

Both my daughters were educated through a fledgling Irish language gaelscoil, entering as part of the very first and second classes respectively, a group which together totalled just 14 pupils.

Gaelscoil Éadain Mhóir was set up in 1998 within some of the most deprived wards of the north - Creggan, Bogside and Brandywell in Derry. It has strengthened and sustained itself because parents, volunteers, politicians, educationalists, community workers and young people have all been determined to make it succeed.

Over 140 students now attend the school. They include my beautiful young nephew Aodhán who is in mainstream education through Irish, while being assisted with his extra needs as someone with Down's syndrome.

It's a reminder that education is the best basis for positively improving social inclusion. Expanding educational access to enhance empowerment on the basis of people's needs is fundamental for social justice.

Soft platitudes? Perhaps (if you’re cynical). But the positive consequences of self-empowerment through education are immeasurable.

At this time of year, I always remember the role played by students in the vanguard of the civil rights movement almost half a century ago in early January 1969.

Their march from Belfast to Derry helped lay bare the sectarian bigotry which Westminster blithely ignored during the north's 50 years of unionist one-party domination.

That student-led protest included great future friends like Vinny and Inez McCormack - with many others, people who willingly walked into danger for people like me, even though I wasn’t yet born; and who carefully documented the brutality of the state's attacks and inequalities with unchallengeable academic rigour.

Students are taught to see the world as it is, but education - in the broadest sense - opens our minds to see the world as it should be. That's a truism that democrats have constantly demonstrated here in the interim 50 years of impressive progress.

I currently have several friends ranging from their early twenties to their mid-sixties completing various vocational courses, certificates, degrees, masters and doctorates (or who've recently graduated) - some of whom haven’t been in formal education in 40 years.

In many cases, their life experience has given them the impetus to expand their base of knowledge and understanding of life - and not for any career-driven objectives. Put simply, by engaging systematically in ongoing formal and informal education and learning, they're admitting they don’t have all the answers: it's a testimony to their wisdom.

After my daughter's graduation in July, as people spilled out onto the chalk pavements of a balmy evening, I looked over at a wee huddle of hugely talented, brilliantly confident, fluent Irish-speaking women laughing in the sunlight - my two daughters among them. It was impossible not to be optimistic about the future.

Empowerment through education will ultimately help us to create an entirely new and better society on this island - one never again stained by unaccountable killings or unacceptable injustices, nor by systematic inequalities or biased prejudices; one instead characterised by the dignity of self-determination, individually and collectively.

(That's why some unionist politicians who constantly attack Irish language provision or equal access to secondary education - whilst ignoring working-class inequalities and underachievement - are guilty of such obtuse bigotry.)

Education should be relentlessly encouraged and repetitively accessed. Indeed, lifelong learning is now globally seen as central to lifelong leadership.

Education, in Mandela's words, “is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. But that will require a constant resolution by us all. (And not just the New Year's variety.)

j.kearney@irishnews.com