take it or leave it

The end is in sight. The countdown clock is ticking loudly. Spring, albeit with a detour or two, is finally here. Just as we have the least time to enjoy it, Kingston becomes beautiful.

For those of us about to be certified, the uncertainty of the unknown looms, even for those confident in their future plans for work, school or gallivanting. It’s a happy dilemma to have when the mere mention of such educational opportunity remains unthinkable to most of the people of this world. The UN’s Millennium Development Goals pledged that by 2015 all children would be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.

Yet, if current trends persist, more than 100 million school-age children will never have set foot inside a classroom by that date. Our decades of education, for all its warts, have taught us many things and fostered in us many values, the amalgam of which has given us the chance and the choice to carve a path of our own desire. In all our reminiscing it is practically redundant to mention the pride, accomplishment and satisfaction we all feel in having made it this far.

The federal budget last Tuesday contained several education-friendly initiatives—increased support for research, increased limits for student loans and attempts to widen access to higher learning for low-income families. Although too late to help most of us, our demographic easily recognizes the importance of such initiatives. But value is relative and priorities shift. Soon we will be amongst those called upon to give where we once received, to fund the social safety infrastructure of health care and education, all while managing the concerns of our own lives. The fire of energetic idealism can easily begin to burn less brightly, to be rekindled later when there is more time.

It was that same idealism and spirit of risk-taking that allowed us these opportunities from which we have benefited. The builders of our country chose to engage in a great social experiment of establishing universal primary education and institutions of accessible higher learning. Our system’s foundations remain solid, even if the pipes now creak and the roof leaks in stormy weather.

But those who took those risks do not consider us in their debt and have not bound us to obligations of repayment. The freedom to make our own choices remains sacrosanct. We will never lack battles to fight, righteous stands to take and noble principles to defend. Protecting the legacy of the system that was built for us is a choice we must make as we would any other.

As the uncertainty fades in the years to come and we take our turns becoming the people we swore we wouldn’t, save a thought for this system, not only in loyalty to a place we once attended but also to the ideals, aspirations and risks that have brought us and our society to where we are today. It’s the smart choice.