My children attend a school with a curriculum that is vastly different from what I experienced in my early childhood education. There is more emphasis on experience and creativity than learning language, arithmetic, and religious or social studies. There is always a project to do, and inadvertently, we have to be involved in these projects as parents.
I remember the first time a plumber came to help my best man fix a blocked pipe and charged him 250 Pounds! It was a bitter lesson he learned and what spurred him into buying his box of tools, and now he does most of his home repairs, and he became quite good at it. The maker culture starts from schools where they encourage children to build things very early. A lot more is learned about problem-solving this way, and the children take those skills into adulthood.
I have known Andrew for many years, and he is a nerd’s nerd. He decided as a child that he wanted to own and fly an airplane, and as an adult, he worked with his father in his garage to build one from scratch. He took pilot lessons and eventually flew it himself. It is not surprising that his bank is leading the open banking movement in South Africa as the first bank to decide to adopt the concept entirely and support a community to rebuild its entire banking backend.
The effect of this decision on the collective curiosity of that generation and innovation overall was profound. We grew up with laboratories and workshops in primary and secondary schools, and it was easier for us to understand first principles and build on them. Losing this foundation most likely led to our innovation setback.