What Jack Ma Told His Son About Education

Jack Ma the founder of Ali Baba – the richest Chinese person and one of the leading tech-entrepreneurs of the world. In one of his interviews shares what he told his son about education.

Jack Ma  says:

I told my son: you don’t need to be in the top three in your class, being in the middle is fine, so long as your grades aren’t too bad. Only this kind of person has enough free time to learn other skills. 

This is surely opposite to what most of the educational systems across different countries are based upon. Where the only focus is to set everything aside and focus only on getting the best grades in classroom. And in most cases skills learnt outside the classroom are never counted for even when the student’s take admission in Universities.

Hence, giving an indication to student that learning skills other than what school teaches is irrelevant and the only way they can succeed is through getting better grades.

Despite of the fact that Jack Ma was never among the top three students during his school life, yet he was able to make Ali Baba become one of the most successful company in the world. And that is a similar story of many leading entrepreneurs and innovators in the world who were never able to get good grades yet are now leading the biggest companies in the world. Jack Ma himself mentions at various times that he himself failed 3 times during the college entrance exams.

So it doesn’t matter how many As or A stars you can get as far as you are learning some good skills along with your studies regularly you are good to go! And remember these skills could be anything from learning how to code, to learning how to play a guitar.