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From Diagnosing the Problems to RemediationAre these children leaving school with the ability to name the royal houses of the Tudorsand the Capetians, but without the faintest idea of how to prevent an unwanted pregnancyor how to cook using only wood and the power of the tropical sun? In order to clarify, I donot know how many children in Kenya or Tanzania learn about the Tudors and Shakespeare,but I know for certain that a majority of students and their teachers have no idea aboutsolar cookers or contraception. Schools that do not prepare their students for real life arethe bare truth in Africa. The question should be raised: do children in schools receive qualityeducation for the real world or do they receive an education for a fictitious world in whichthey do not and never will live?These are not questions that developing countries facing alone and one does not haveto look far for parallels. Think about it, in the backdrop of the crisis, what is the real value ofeducating hundreds or maybe thousands of Slovak graduates in disciplines such as politicalscience? Do we need a political science graduate in every village pub? Hardly. The differencebetween Slovakia and Uganda is, truthfully, that our economic and social system 110has so-far proven capable of supporting thousands of young people with educations thathave almost exclusively an imaginary value. In Uganda, on the other hand, this matter ismuch more fundamental for survival and letting a boy or girl loose in such an environmentwithout relevant education or knowledge is a lost opportunity. Even if this may look likea good idea according to UN statistics.Finally, there is another fundamental question regarding issues concerning the measurabilityof the goals of the MDGs and the precision and appropriateness of their definitions:do the MDGs cover all of the key areas needed to be achieved in order to improve the prospectsfor humans living in these countries? Unfortunately, the answer is “no”. There is onelarge elephant in the room that everyone knows about but that we all choose to ignore it.In fact, we all hope that if we don’t see it, it’ll go away all by itself. Maybe this will be thecase, but the likelihood that the elephant is going to leave the room all by itself withoutwreaking havoc is almost zero. As I am sure you are thinking, that metaphorical elephant ispopulation growth. The failure to include goals related to decreasing fertility rates amongthe MDGs is, of course, the result of political compromise based on an on-going ideologicalwar that has been waged singe the Middle Ages.The level of population growth in Zimbabwe, Niger and Uganda at the start of 2011was estimated to be 4 % annually. What does this mean? If this same rate of growth wasmaintained, the size of the population in these countries would double in a little less than18 years. Uganda would have 70 million people by 2030, half of whom would be childrenunder the age of 18. Can you imagine this not resulting in a disaster?The level of population growth in Ethiopia, both Congos, Rwanda, Burundi, Senegal,Mali, Zambia and 10 other African countries was estimated at 3 % annually. This meansthat their populations will double every 23 years. Ethiopia, which today has 94 million people,would have to support 188 million by 2035 while the Congo would have to support110 At least in the middle of 2012 this still held true.129