OKAY, nothing in life is free as you’re taxed to the bone, and people like us also pony up for other kids whose parents don’t work. And the key problem with ‘free education’ is that it’s not necessarily good.
For example, many state teachers are hard-left socialists, thus the subliminal message is that capitalism is bad and competition even worse.
This doesn’t augur well for success in life and is graphically proved by the fact that even though only 7% of Brit kids go to private schools, that tiny figure comprised almost 60% of the UK’s 2012 Olympic team.
The statistics are even more impressive for privately-educated captains of industry.
University is the same. It costs about R100 000 a year in tuition fees which the state picks up, but once you graduate, you have to pay that back.
However, the state only demands its money back once you’re earning more than R200 000 a year. So if you get a degree in rocket science but take a job as a dustman, you never pay for your carefree university days.
However, the real expense is living costs when – like us – you have two brats simultaneously at university. The state, for some reason, doesn’t pick up students’ exorbitant beer, food and accommodation bills – which I think is very mean of it (heh).
The main thing about all of this is that your kids are suddenly seriously indebted to the state.
When I was at varsity, my folks who footed the bills could have said, hey you’re not working hard enough – we’re not going to pay. In fact, I was always mildly surprised they never said that and conclude they weren’t properly informed.
Anyway, the threat hung over my head and I scraped through each year, to the stunned surprise of all and sundry.
My folks knew I was no academic and once they accepted I wasn’t going to opt for their first choice of career for me – an accountant – they let me do my own thing.
Naked Amazonian women
This resulted in some … er, interesting choices. For example, one of my subjects was Social Anthropology, which was basically a series of lectures given by bearded men arriving in beat-up Land Rovers and showing films of pretty girls they had studied in Amazonian jungles, most of whom didn’t wear clothes. When I told my mates this, the lecture hall for some reason was packed out.
But I digress. We take it in good faith claims from the brats that they’re working their butts off. However, the one brat let slip that his economics lecture is very early – all of 9am – and on a very bad day, as he has cricket practice the night before.
We do know that cricket practice involves a two hour session in the nets, then a three hour party, and suspect that may be the reason why the economics lecture is badly scheduled. But if I push him on this, he shrugs and says it’s not a problem.
And here come the tricky bit; I have to accept that it’s none of my business. I’m not paying for the course – he is. Well, eventually. So everything is completely in his hands.
This doesn’t stop us from nagging him, and management is not shy about pushing them both to their absolute limits. But they are now completely in charge of their destinies.
Ironically, my folks never nagged me when they footed the bills and they had every reason to. My best mate, for example, spent three years at varsity trying to pass first year.
In fact, I think in that entire period he went through one ballpoint pen – and that was writing humorous notes to me during the occasional lecture he attended. His folks would have been better off spending the money on No 3 nag running the third race at Greyville.
So far our brats have never given us reason to doubt them. However, I suppose we do have one card up our sleeves. We can threaten to withdraw their beer money.
But hey, even I’m not that mean.
