Has anyone taken a look at our schools recently?

And no, the question is not intended only for Education Minister Charles Murigande. The question is for us all Rwandans.

Education, as they say, is the key. It is the key to an individual to find a better life in the future; the key to the functional well-being of a society; the key that unlocks all kinds of individual and societal possibilities.

For all these reasons it is quite shocking how little attention as a society we pay to this very important issue.

How can we sit back and be unconcerned seeing the kind of dilapidated schools the vast majority of Rwandan children go to?

Of course we do not have the resources to provide everyone with a first class education, but there is a lot we can do to improve the existing ones if we are really concerned and would like to see a change in the status quo.

The first thing one notices about any of our primary and secondary schools is how dusty and shabby they are. You have broken windows and unpainted walls and children using horrible toilets and so on.

What does going to school in such conditions do to a child’s mentality as she or he is growing up? That it is alright to be shabby in one’s habits, even thoughts? That no one has the obligation to be clean and hygienic?

The “playgrounds” are expanses of dirt that look like no blade of grass has ever grown on them. The mindset of most Rwandans seems that it does not matter where their children play. This is primitive.

As the adage goes a healthy mind can only be in a healthy body and you get healthy bodies by exercising them. Other than that, even our sports are affected. You cannot have good sports men and women if they do not begin playing sports at an early age and at school.

All those people moaning and complaining that we do not have homegrown footballers in our teams should moan even louder because we do not have playfields in our primary and secondary schools.

Surely it cannot take a lot to paint the walls of schools. Surely it does not require much to grow grass on school playing fields and surely the worst offending schools can be closed down to be an example so that others do better?

But that is as far as the physical infrastructure and appearance of schools is concerned.

A far greater problem is the mindset most Rwandan students take to school.

The problem of copying in our tertiary institutions for example is endemic. Most students go with a single goal: to get a paper qualification. How this student gets this qualification he or she does not mind as long as they get it.

They will use all known means of cheating; they will copy, they will buy papers from teachers desperate to make ends meet; they will even text message each other answers in exam rooms. The student who goes to any of our universities with the aim to actually get an education is a rare one.

The situation is parlous. The country is beset by skills shortages of all kinds, but how can we overcome the shortages when what tertiary institutions churn out every year are half-baked graduates who have used every known method of cheating to get their qualifications?

The government really needs to sit up and take note. We do not know how to stress it enough, but a society that fails so many of its young fails itself more than anyone else.