Education: Then, Now and Then?

Education’s Elegy

When I was growing as a child,

School fees were gentle, soft and mild,

When my children grew, it stayed in kind,

Education used to bind and bind,

When grandchildren studied, it shook the mind,

Great‑grandchildren inherited debts of mind,

For us, learning was a pride,

Then credentials fetched a bride.

Once education was nearly free,

Now students themselves became free of it, you see,

We carried hardly books in hand,

Now parents must sell their very land,

Bags grew heavier than the child,

Spines bent before minds could rise, dreams defiled.

Knowledge was once truly worshipped,

Then discipline got completely shipped,

Profit and exploitation ruled the norm,

Those who survived became the worm,

Understanding faded from all hearts,

And money rolled away in carts.

Degrees were stamped for wedding marts,

To trade young souls for graph‑line charts,

A king was born with vision grand,

Built education’s dreaming land,

Then sold it slowly to the traders,

Who weighed each child by marks and graders.

A sudden mandate wore the crown,

To pull the house of learning down—

Studying shall be declared a crime,

Learning was no longer prime.

Yet scribes were summoned to draft the decree,

Proving education’s necessity, ironically.

That day a dreadful bell was rung,

And hell rose up from earth’s own lung,

The crown that strangled its own foundation,

Became the grave of civilization.