50 years ago, the third world state comprised a mostly illiterate population.

Yet, last year, Singapore hit the headlines for topping the Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA), an international educational ranking
test, as well as being ranked the third richest country by Forbes. Nelson
Mandela famously said, "Education is the most important weapon that can
change the world," and indeed, in the context of Singapore, education seems
to change Singapore such that it rose from a developing state to a prosperous
nation.Yet, in many countries such as Egypt and Nigeria, even with education,
the social and political landscape remains enshrouded with problems. In fact,
rather than changing the world, education, more often than not, is employed
to ensure the world stays the same, whereby democratic nations continue to
educate their people on the superiority of capitalism, and where countries
still in decades-long conflict teach their students to continue the conflict.

For change to happen, it requires two things, a state of discontentment and

power.

For people to want to change the current situation, the current situation must
have been filled with suffering, and the people must know that they are
suffering. Before the end of Cold war, many brainwashed Soviet citizens
believed that their living standards were better off their counterparts in the
West, hence they were unaware that the poor economic situation they were
experiencing was not universal. It was because of the rise of Gorbachev and
his policy of Glasnost that relaxed the strict censorship on media, that the
Soviets became aware of their social plight and became discontent with their
situation, and could take actions to actively voice out their discontent.
Moreover, it was arguably because Gorbachev was aware of the undesirable
economic, social and political situation in USSR, and the causes of it, due to
his access to such knowledge, and his ability as the leader of the USSR to
make changes to the pitiable situation. In such an example, it could be
postulated that the awareness of their social and political rights, or lack of,
facilitated by avenues such as mass media and education, as well as the
power to make changes, make changes to the world. In this case, education
for the masses is important to equip them with knowledge of inequalities and
the rights and wrongs, so that they make take action to make the changes to
the world.

However, just the knowledge of grievance and sufferings are insufficient for
changes to occur. More importantly, they must have the power to change, as
seen in Gorbachev and his ability as a leader of USSR. Those with power,
rather than education, can be seen as ones who can control whether changes
will or will not happen. A modern example would be that of the Umbrella
Revolution in Hong Kong. Indeed, most of the people participating in the 2014
Umbrella Movement were educated citizens who tried to influence an end to
China's meddling in the politics in Hong Kong. Yet, they failed in their protest
against the 831 decision, a decision made by the Standing Committee of the
National People's Congress (NPCSC), the national legislative body of China
that stated that new Chief Executive popularly elected in the 2017 Chief
Executive election in Hong Kong "will have to be appointed by the Central
People's Government". Those in power, which is the NPCSC in this case, were
the ones who were able to make changes in the political landscape in Hong
Kong, and the powerless participants, were unable to resist the change.

On the other hand, one might say education equips people with the power to
change the world, since it equips them with skills that could allow them to
earn more money, and perhaps, escape the poverty cycle. This may be seen
in the previously mentioned country, Singapore. With a large amount of
resources being channeled towards good education for the masses, no longer
are the citizens primarily working in primary industries and earning low
wages. Rather, most of them are employed as skilled professionals. In fact, as
mentioned in Singapore's Budget Speech in 2015, the median wage of a
Singaporean has increased 6 times since its independence in 1965. Hence,
education seems to have the ability to change some third world countries to
first world nations, and thereby, changing parts of the world.

Yet, in a lot of developing countries, which key industries continued to be

fixated on the traditional money making industries, a large number of
educated youths are unable to gain employment in the limited number of job
vacancies. Corruption in the governments of these countries prevent the
governments from investing resources into building more industries that will
generate employment for the unemployed, educated youths. In Nigeria, with
its continuing focus on the oil industries, the number of unemployed
educated youths continue to rise, and in 2016, the youth unemployment rate
was estimated to be about 42.24%. Therefore, in reality, education itself does
not give power to the poor to change their financial situation.

Moreover, in a world governed by laws and money, real power lies in people
who control the law and people who have the money to control the law. As
the Fuhrer of Nazi Germany, Hitler was able to make a set of Nuremberg laws
which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology,
one that changed the world for Jews in Germany, for they became second
class citizens. Hitler's rise of power was supported by the rich German
industrialists and businessmen, who pumped in money into his electoral
campaigns.The depiction of money and law ruling the world continue to exist
today, whereby the rich continues to pump money to support the electoral
campaigns so that the elected Parliament would create policies that allow the
rich to get richer.

In fact, those with real power made use of education as a form of propaganda
to ensure they stay in power. In several countries, historical revisionism and
integrating standard school subjects with the ruling party's ideology has been
carried out in order to ensure there is no opposition to them. In Nazi
Germany, the Nazi party make use of the education system to promote Nazi
ideologies and hence, the youth's loyalty to the Nazi party. The German
youths were taught of the superiority of their Aryan blood, and taught to hate
the other inferior races, as every standard subject taught in school, such as
Mathematics, Geography and the Sciences, were infused with ideas of war,
inferiority of the Jews, Gypsies and those with special needs. Similarly in
Pakistan, formal education is manipulated to ensure children conform to
Islam, the dominant ideology in Pakistan. Hence, education is an instrument
used by those in power to continue to rule, and for the world to stay the
same.

Hence, all in all, education at present is more of tool that resists changes to
the world rather than a facilitator of change. Education only becomes a tool
for changes in the world when the ones in power changes, whereby it would
then be used, paradoxically, as a means of resisting changes to their world.