There is a reason that academic institutions are often situated away from the centre of the city at the outskirts, away from all the hustle and bustle of the crowded roads and places of business. The obvious one being, of course, that campuses require large amounts of space, in the very literal sense of the word. However, they become space in a sociological sense as well. Academic institutions, especially universities and colleges, are meant to be places where not only learning takes place but where thoughts need to be provoked. In a way they are enclosed and artificially constructed in such a way so as to provide for the students and scholars living within their walls a space for free, unbounded thinking. That is so they can raise questions, which someone living within the usual problems, preoccupations and limitations of everyday societal life would not be able to raise; questions to which answers could be found that are not bound by realism but often based in idealism, so you can think of, or at least entertain, possibilities of solutions not in terms of a practicality that is short-sighted because of social constraints and social forces but which are coming from a mindset that from the very beginning had as its aim the most sound and perfected form of reasoning and logic the human mind is capable of. In other words, answers to problems not in terms of how they could be but how they ought to be. This is why idealism is so often the rhetoric of commencement and graduation speeches and why ‘Go forth and change the world’ or something along these lines is the message that is made to come across. Although while I was in college, I had often thought of life within the walls of the institution as living in a bubble, I also knew it was by virtue of this very characteristic that I, like many other students, was able to entertain what could be called idealistic verging on utopian notions of how society ought to be that those living outside the bubble, what we often call ‘the real world’, could not. This is also why I believe in the importance of and the need for having more established institutions of higher education in Pakistan and the importance of education in general for our society where idealism, and even realism, cannot find a place for itself amongst growing frustration and uncertainty. With the newly elected government of Nawaz Sharif now taking office, we can see the attention of the government machinery being brought to the strengthening of various institutions, as we seek to find solutions to the multitude of political and economic problems that we face in the hopes of establishing a stronger democracy and a more stable and growing economy. But on the road to getting there, there is also a social transformation of thought that is important and constantly needs to take place in the citizens. In order to address our problems, see the change that we would like to see in society and become a true democracy, there is a need to focus on the intellectual and ideological nurturing of the people that are to partake in the democratic process so they can be individuals capable of making better decisions and more informed choices. This is just as important as policy and reform and a strengthening of our other civic, political and economic institutions, if not more. Herein lies the social benefit of education and educational institutions. Especially for a country such as ours that is beset with crippling problems from all sides, which tear at the social fabric of our landscape and are tarnishing its image, as we try to strive and progress like all other nations to maintain our place in a rapidly changing and adapting global society. The need for directing our attention towards education becomes so much more important in the wake of the educational emergency that the country now faces, which has been given in detail in reports by organisations such as South Asian Forum for Education Development and Alif Ailaan. It was slightly encouraging to see in the newly proposed budget, putting aside the pros and the cons that the amount allocated towards the Public Sector Development Programme was increased to Rs 18.4 billion from 15.8 billion last year and 39 billion was allocated solely to higher education for the purposes of scholarships, establishment of new educational institutions etc. It would be even better to see responsible authorities and officials working in the education sector moving beyond just pummelling money into various programmes, and to give serious consideration to reform in public education from the very basic level in the curriculum to the structural level because there is a dire need for it. It is time that we try to rid ourselves and our society completely of ideological indoctrination, ignorance and illiteracy and promote free and critical thinking. The writer is an intern at Daily Times