Daily Times

Education today is just a branding. Parents feel proud to send their children to a well-known school of their society ignoring the cost they must pay for it. They are making this investment for the better future of their child. They want their kids to excel in every field of life. They dream big for the better future of their kids. For getting these desirable ends, they use every possible means so that one day they could see their dreams come true. They have a vision for their kid. They send their kids to schools in order to pursue this vision. After investing a big share of their earning for this purpose do they ever wonder what kind of education they are actually giving to their child?

In the name of education, the only thing our children are learning is competing with others. Children are continuously being told that they are not good enough if they are not leaving other children behind. This sense of competition is playing havoc with our social and moral values. If we talk about the environment of our educational institutions, it is not conducive for implanting value in our future generation. Our institutions have well qualified teachers who are enthusiastic to share their knowledge with students but are not actually in a position to do so. For, their potential is being utilised in random stuff which adds little to the learning of the children. Teachers nowadays are choreographers, interior designers, costume designers, painters, props maker, actors or anything but teachers. The energy of the teachers is being wasted in less productive tasks. Teaching is purely a mental job but today’s institutions have made it just a physical labor.

If we consider the economic perspective, we all know that teaching is the most underpaid profession in our country but on the other hand parents are bearing a huge cost to get education for their children. So, the point to ponder is that where is all this money going. Is making money the sole purpose of education institutions? If so, these institutions are not any different from other profit-making organisations which are exclusively working for maximising their profits at any cost, and if this cost is to compromise the social and moral values of our future generation and creating less emotional robotic version of humans out of our kids then of course there is something extremely wrong with this system.

Moral values of students are being compromised and we cannot only blame educational institutions for this defect because parents are equally responsible for it too. Parents argue with the teachers in front of their children. They hold teachers accountable for every fault in their kids and as a result the children learn that it is acceptable to not obey and show respect towards their teachers because they know that at the end there is always going to be their teacher to take blame for any of their mistakes. After showing this disrespect for teachers, do parents still wonder why their kids misbehave and argue with them at home? In this matter, school management’s role is also very disappointing; they ask teachers to keep their mouths shut in front of the parents, no matter what they say. They brazenly make their point clear by saying that we are paying you only because we are getting money from the parents. In short, parents’ satisfaction is more important than a teacher’s self-respect.

Getting education is our religious obligation. Our religion has made it compulsory for all men and women to get education. We should make sure that we are getting it in the right way, otherwise it will bring no good to our society. We should pay attention to the kind of education we are getting and where is it leading us.