As American college students, we have gone to school for just about as long as we can remember. As a result, education may not be viewed as a privilege, but rather a chore of labor.

How often have we found ourselves doing homework and thinking, “When am I ever going to use this information?” instead of embellishing on how lucky we are to be in a position to learn?

Kimani Nganga Maruge is a man who understands the worth of education. As an 86-year-old, he recently enrolled in the third grade.

He has spent his entire life illiterate in a poor village outside El Doret, in western Kenya. According to an ABC world report by Kate Snow, Kenya’s government passed a law offering free universal education for primary school in 2003.

After this new turn of events, Maruge felt the urge to open the powerful door of learning and take advantage of this valuable gift that many Americans take for granted.

Initially, the administrators at this African school were doubtful of the legitimacy of his hopes to enroll as a student. “We thought he was lost. Maybe he was looking for somebody or something, or maybe wanted to find out about something. That was the last thing in our mind, that he wanted to come to school,” headmistress Jane Obinchu said.

However, Maruge returned over and over. The teachers turned him away several times.

In January 2004, he showed up wearing the school uniform ready to learn. Perplexed, the school principal finally let him enroll. Two years later, he hasn’t been absent one day.

This man would put many Elon students to shame in class lecture attendance, and he would do it all gladly.

Maruge walks to school every day, although he is hobbling because of missing a toe on his left foot. He lost it, he says, when he was persecuted during Kenya’s war for independence in 1952.

This handicap does not stop him because he is proud to finally read.

After chatting with a senior education major Samantha Drongoski, it was obvious that she put education on a high level of importance.

“I personally value education today because I don’t believe that our society could survive and grow without it,” she said.

If you think about it from a teacher’s perspective, we wouldn’t have educated doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, teachers and other professionals if it weren’t for the education that is provided by teachers in primary, secondary and post-secondary positions.

Education should be valued by all members of society, because we would have a very primitive society without it.

Columnist: Jonathan Fiedler - Photos: MCT Campus 04/05/07