I sat in solitude contemplating the great sorrows of my generation. In my wise cogitation only one question came to mind. Of all the tragedies of this day and age, things which defile our souls, which one is the worst?

Name : Stephen Buabeng-Baidoo

School : Voortrekker Hoogte

Province : Gauteng

Topic : The 30% Generation

Surprisingly it was not the old dogmas of immorality, smoking, drinking, and no not even the infamous drug use! The answer came to me in the form of a question coined by Albert Einstein. “Am I crazy for challenging everything or is the world for challenging nothing?” The latter question is a code for all victims of a new school of thought, the 30% Generation!

The 30% generation is as the name dictates, 30%! Not only is the 30% generation required to live below par, the highest aspirations of their minds is for the attainment of being average. Members of this population aspire to do just enough, to test themselves as little as possible! Their time is better spent gallivanting on street corners with the infamous monkey jive, free of worries they float from year to year troubled only by idle things.

Yet let us not be alarmed, for the 30% generation is not an alien species planning an invasion! They already have! Citizens of this populace parade around, on busses, in parks, in centers of learning, their garments 'The skinny jean' is tight to the point of constricting intelligence! Their sneakers or All Stars are in better shape than their marks and they pride themselves more in the sheen of their locks than the contents of their character.

The 30% generation makes excuses for their idle state, they say: How can we challenge the world? We aren't smart enough, we don't know enough yet showing in their actions that to them the attainment of knowledge is of little importance.

Yet it is not only them in their youthful naivety who disregard their own abilities. Their parents too, shout with glee on report day, “Oh! My child you are a genius” though realizing that their children have just scraped through. Confirming with a hug and a new 'cell phone' that they believe their children to be mediocre, unable to attain distinction.

How did this way of thinking come to be? Who can we blame? For we know that all diseases have a cause, so what bacteria of thought caused this stagnant virus of the soul? Is it the government? Those professors of 30 'percentalism' whose stamped approval of the passing rate symbolized their acceptance of our retarded state, no different from the proponents of Bantu Education who labeled us incapable of intellect, thus feeding a people the diet worms.

Or is it the media? Whose headlines lament a broken generation. Deeming us unworthy in the shadow of our past predecessors, yet knowing full well that we don't have an oppressive government topple, no idea to die for, no enemy to fling the stones of our indignation.

I know that the cause of 30 percentalism has many a great a cause yet I, Stephen Nana Kofi Buabeng-Baidoo, stand here a cure! 

I stand an antagonist to the 30% generation, for through my veins throbs the blood of black intellectuals. My calcium calabash cooked in the inferno of my father's wisdom and brewed by the supple palms of my mother's serenity ferments the potency of my potential. I refuse the dogmatic standards of a narrow society and choose this iron conviction, to dare mighty things and win glorious triumphs.

For what other path are we left to take? When the only obstacle to our greatness is ourselves!