Your Kid’s Expensive Private School Tech Education Is Sh*t.
Before my daughter finished Grade 9, she started Math 11 Pre-Calculus; she has completed a Harvard course on Leadership, two University Courses on English Composition and Health Sciences, and she is now working on a University History course. This summer she has completed her Chinese HSK #2 test (Chinese government-based proficiency tests). She’s been running a sticker shop on Etsy since she was 10. She’s had over 400 in sales doing it part-time while still being a kid. She’s 15. My son is on a similar path. I’m not bragging, although my daughter and son are incredible. I’m telling you all this because I want you to understand that this was not by accident. This was not their private school education or their private tutors; it was my planning. My wife and I designed it early on. It’s not about ‘starting young to get them ahead’; it’s about “getting them smart with skills and the right education”.
I want you to keep my conclusion in mind: It’s up to you as the wealthy parents, or the savvy middle-class parents, to decide if you want your kids to fall into serfdom under the World Economic Forum, or above it. If you want free children who become healthy, successful adults who can manage and carry on what you built and the multi-millions you banked, or have them burn it all in a changing world they can’t manage. For you, the middle-class parents, the middle class in the West is disappearing; your children’s future means either poverty or wealth. There is no in-between. Sounds scary, but world dynamics are changing; you need to be realistic but still have an insurance plan if it goes that bad.
The urgent need to safeguard my children’s future is what led to the creation of Techrich Training. As a proud Canadian family, we were raised to believe Canada would always offer the highest standard of living and freedom. But over the decades, my wife and I realized the world is shifting faster than ever. Simply living and working in Canada is no longer an automatic guarantee of success. This reality goes far beyond any election cycle. Once we set aside our biases and patriotism, the global landscape looks very different than we were taught
I’ve discussed education with close friends who hold one of two opinions: either ‘AI will replace everything’ or ‘we’ll just send the kids to the best private school and hire tutors.’ These friends have millions, planned business succession for their kids, even secured additional residencies and citizenship’s. But they never planned their children’s technology education, banking on the private school system to keep them on track. Nothing could be further from the truth. A lack of foresight is leaving even wealthy families’ kids underprivileged in their education. Unless you’re Elon Musk, Bill Gates, or a Saudi Prince, your kids are already behind. In a technocratic future, your children must do more than hold onto the money you left behind—they need the skills to adapt, build, and sustain that wealth
Imagine building a multimillion-dollar empire, only to realize your kids don’t have the skills to hold onto a penny. Top-dollar private education no longer guarantees success. Last week, while my kids were taking their HSK exam, I watched parents dropping their children off at 9 AM on a Sunday for extra math cram sessions. That old-school approach may have worked decades ago, but the world has moved on. Today, I’d rather my kids master practical skills like Docker, blockchain, cybersecurity, and AI. Years ago, we made a deliberate plan: stay ahead of the curve, not trapped by a single system. Travel became a learning opportunity. We taught them the history of our destinations, analyzing strengths and weaknesses to spot opportunities that don’t exist in Canada. Most importantly, we challenged them to look 5, 10, or 50 years into the future, using trends to predict where the world is actually heading. Things are going to change, how will they adapt?
Maybe a quick example would be the city of Shenzhen, sure today it is well respected as the hub of the Greater Bay Area and the Silicon Valley of China. Still, as early as the 80’s it was just a small fishing village of no value. We taught the kids that story and asked them to imagine and understand what it took to go from a poor fishing village to one of the highest GDPs in China and the world. There are more millionaires in Shenzhen than in Hong Kong now. We asked them similar questions about the UAE, and their rise from a fishing village to the dominant force it is today.
My philosophy in IT is that ‘it’s all the same.’ Yes, different vendors have different commands, syntax, and APIs, but I had to learn how to make it work whether I was using Cisco or Huawei. Similarly, our kids need to learn how to adapt, educate themselves, and function in the global economy, whether they are operating in the G7, East Asia, the Middle East, Africa, or Latin America. We tried to match that vision with an education plan that would set them on the right path, one that wouldn’t be redundant in the future and one where they’d be able to adapt. For our kids, that focus was on business; my daughter started by selling stickers at age 10 on Etsy, and my son started by selling Pokémon cards. These are their interests, so it made sense for them. We told them to pursue whatever they like, but with a plan, short term and long term.
Dissatisfied with my daughter’s theoretical tech curriculum, I started looking for alternatives. Too many programs let students pass exams and earn certifications without gaining any real-world, hands-on skills. As someone in both IT and education, I knew this was a disaster waiting to happen.
I evaluated platforms like Codecademy and toured private schools globally, but the tech programs were universally underwhelming. I realized I had naively expected schools to employ active industry professionals. The harsh reality? The pay gap is simply too wide. Experts capable of teaching AI, DevOps, or cybersecurity will always earn significantly more in the industry than in a classroom.
Therefore, the next best thing is to ensure my kids are taught by someone with that same level of practical, industry-tested ability. After touring educational systems worldwide, I found that China was one of the very few standouts, in both the private and public sectors, that actually did a ‘decent’ job of delivering this kind of practical tech education.” but then I read that China is dealing with a similar skills gap and is sending University students into the Vocational/Polytechnic type of training schools. These kids in China, even in more remote areas are already getting an education in AI, yet in the West and Canada at most kids are learning or just being told to “stop using ChatGPT to cheat”.
To give you a damning example, consider the types of online courses I encountered while searching for EdTech solutions. Take this platform, which is used by universities across the USA. If you look closely, the site lacks any information about the instructors, their qualifications, or their real-world experience. It gives the distinct impression that their thousands of courses were churned out by an outsourced team. By contrast, on my own platform, Techrich Training, I clearly display my name and credentials.
Most mass-market ed-tech platforms offer no such transparency. If you can’t see who created the material, how can you trust its rigour? A student might walk away with a certificate, but a piece of paper is vastly different from possessing the ability to execute in the real world. As the CEO of a private data centre company, I can instantly spot these ‘robot graduates’ who know nothing but how to pass a test. They clicked around, memorized concepts, and passed a word test. That isn’t skill building. You can only come up with creative, critical solutions if you actually know what you’re doing.
Parents are left with two flawed options. The first is to enroll in entry-level university IT courses for credit, which my daughter will do, but with the sobering understanding that it provides almost zero practical, real-world skills. The second is to rely on online platforms that offer hands-on labs, but are built by anonymous creators with unverified qualifications. Neither path is acceptable. You are forced to choose between a degree lacking practical application or skills lacking credibility. That is exactly why I created Techrich Training: to bridge the critical gap between academic rigour and hands-on, industry-relevant skills in a transparent, online environment. Is Techrich disruptive to the tech-ed space? Absolutely. Because it’s built on real labs and step-by-step experience, you learn the why and how, not just which buttons to click.
Yes, my daughter was able to complete the Docker course from her own computer, on her own. I reason that if a Grade 9 student can do entry-level university, they can certainly do university-level IT and tech courses, so long as the lab infrastructure is online. I designed Techrich Training with that in mind. So teachers, parents and tutors don’t need to scramble and do the legwork; it’s all built in and ready to go for your children.
Some parents argue that learning tech fundamentals is pointless because ‘you don’t know what tech will be around in 10 years.’ They ask: ‘Do you still need to know Python when anyone can do vibe coding?’ I argue: yes, absolutely. AI makes mistakes, especially in cybersecurity. If you don’t understand how the code works, how will you know what it’s actually doing? The kids who understand fundamentals will be in massive demand when AI-caused cybersecurity disasters unfold. That’s not a stretch. My company, Techrich, has been fixing messes created by companies that fired their IT teams thinking AI could do it all. We’re charging thousands to fix damage that affects everything from emails to payroll. Your kids can build businesses around fixing AI mistakes or working alongside AI to build better security. AI is a tool, but we will still need human expertise. It’s up to you, as the wealthy or savvy middle-class parents, to decide if you want your kids to fall into “own nothing and be happy”, or “own a bit of that 1% pie”.
Conclusion
In the end, the plan for my children isn’t just about getting ahead of the curve; it’s about getting comfortable with the curve itself. It’s about normalizing the process of using, troubleshooting, and mastering new technology. We can never be 100% sure which specific ‘tech skills’ will be most in demand a decade from now. We assume AI and DevOps will still be relevant, but drawing from my own career, I always remind my students of one fundamental truth: ‘It’s all the same.’ Whether they are learning AI, cloud architecture, or the next big emerging technology, the real skill is the process of learning, experimenting, testing, and deploying. As long as my kids possess that foundational ability to constantly learn, adapt, and problem-solve, I know they won’t just be okay, they will succeed.
Here is a video I did about the state of IT training and another reason I created Techrich Training:
