It is not only the story of a specific tribe, area, city or a province but the story of a whole generation. The population bomb has affected every sphere of life, ranging from admissions to the job market. The saturation of fields and private universities mushrooming has produced too many graduates. Therefore, to be in a merit list of the small numbers of public colleges and universities, a student has to get high marks, and to get high marks there are no rules of the game.
This all leads to making a student a semi-robot, having no human or societal awareness and thoughts. This type of student only measures success in numbers. When numbers come in human life, the values of customs and traditions run out. We, in Pakistan, are witnessing the same generation.
But, is the current generation responsible for this? Is our government responsible for this? Are parents and society jointly responsible for all this? There is no single answer for all these questions, rather we have to examine the different factors responsible for it.
Firstly, if we talk about matric and intermediate level exams, there are organized mafias which work from appointing desired duty staff to marking level.
There are rates in different boards to get specific staff, as they cooperate in the exams. Similarly, there are rates of the checkers team as well. The board staff get numerous remunerations from the private sector. Even in Kohat, there are centres where papers reach after 10 a.m. The solved papers are given to the students before the paper reaches the centre. As this is the age of technology, through social media platforms it reaches from one end to a mother in specific board areas. The amazing thing is that the duty staff is responsible for all this. The whole process is full of loopholes and is poisonous for students.
Secondly, teachers are the backbone of the whole process. Unfortunately, the current inflation has made them robots as well. Instead of teaching values and imparting critical skills to students, they are also part of the process of manufacturing semi-robots in the shape of academies and coaching centres. Expensive parts will get beautiful robotic shapes.
To produce such a generation we must invest in education and take it in a whole new direction by kicking out all the centuries-old methods of preparing and studying only for exams. We must create an environment which is student-friendly instead of teacher-friendly and business-friendly.
Thirdly, after the 18th Amendment, education became purely a provincial matter. After 14 years democratic people had adopted the Single National Curreculam (SNC). From 2009 to 2022, every provincial education minister tested is own recipes in the laboratory on the teachers and students alike. Having no proper vision and mission, the education sector only produced soulless students.
Fourthly, technology played its role. The mobile phones have captured the minds of students. They know how to play a game but they do not know how to remain clean. They will play games till morning but will remain late from the school. This became a habit of the current generation and it seems difficult to forecast a bright future for them. The function of the education must be to impart values and critical thinking in the new generation instead of making them robots.
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
Fifthly, the successive governments measured education on different scales and parameters. We all know that education parameters are part of the Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs), and we are bound to complete them. But, we must demonstrate the demographic picture in a true sense. The enrollment is not a big issue but the poverty, transport, unnecessary requirements, nutritional status, and inferiority complex which became a part of the student personality are the bigger issues that we are ignoring.
Similarly, everyone loves politics. It became a problem when teachers became part of it. Education institutions are highly politicized. There are fewer political parties in Pakistan and more political groups in the education department. They are responsible for each and every negative output tested by successive governments. They are responsible for the destruction of a whole generation.
The list is long but now we must define our vision and goals with proper planning to produce a generation having values which we need to run the country, instead of producing a generation which only knows how to earn and earn more. We need to produce a generation which know that resources are depleting day by day, which know how to overcome climate change, which know how to avoid floods and disasters created by human activities, which know the value of customs, traditions, interfaith harmony, art and literature, which has a proper vision and mission in the mind about life and world, which treat all as humans instead of dividing them in categories.
To produce such a generation we must invest in education and take it in a whole new direction by kicking out all the centuries-old methods of preparing and studying only for exams. We must create an environment which is student-friendly instead of teacher-friendly and business-friendly.
