"Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it"

Education has always been intimately linked with power, shaping not only the prospects of individuals but also determining the destinies of communities and nations. The relationship between education and oppression is not merely coincidental; rather, it is a conscious dynamic maintained by those who benefit from societal imbalance. When those in authority withhold knowledge from the masses, they are actively maintaining their dominance, ensuring the continuation of their privileged position by keeping others unaware of both their rights and their ability to challenge the status quo.

The truly transformative nature of genuine education lies in its ability to awaken critical consciousness. Beyond basic literacy or rote learning, a truly educated person develops autonomy, critical thinking skills, and an awareness of their potential agency. The powerful understand that education, in its deepest form, fuels self-determination. It forges individuals who do not simply accept the world as presented but interrogate it, recognizing and resisting systems of exploitation. Knowledge arms people not only with the means to reason and question but also facilitates solidarity, enabling collective action against oppressive structures.

Oppressors thus have a vested interest in fostering a superficial form of education, one that might train individuals only to serve economic roles, reinforcing the structures of exploitation rather than challenging them. They fear that if people understood the depths of their own capability and the mechanisms by which power is wielded over them, they would cease begging for fairness and instead assert their entitlement to justice and self-rule. Power, after all, is not given; it is seized by those who recognize both their oppression and their ability to overturn it.

Clarke’s words challenge us to examine who controls education and whose interests it ultimately serves. True education embodies liberation, transforming passive subjects into active agents of change, redefining the relationship between the rulers and the ruled.