Daily Times

A commonly-held viewpoint about education is that it’s an ultimate goal of a person’s life to earn a degree in his hand and add himself to a self-proclaimed upper echelon. No doubt, it’s an incredible exposition by the capitalists’ commune. Whenever this elucidation enters a duel of improvisation, it wins with flags. As compared to foreign universities, the education provided in our country is of quite low standards. These shallow levels combined with the thinking our ideologues promote, have devastated everything. Grappling with the current deplorable situation requires unfettered struggle with an unclouded vision.

At this moment, we have more than 120 officially recognized universities in Pakistan. The reprehensible and helpless condition of students in public universities is a matter of fact. We have placed such guardians who have no idea about the perennial potential challenges in our education system. It’s a fault on part of our governments and policy making circles who have reduced educational institutions to mere facetious agencies like any other government department. First, when the education was a federal subject of affairs, it had its own set of issues but with the devolution of powers through the 18^th amendment, it has become a provincial matter. Despite of all aspirations, the situation has become even worse. The federal and provincial higher education commissions continue their tussle for claiming authorities but seldom admit the responsibilities. In our varsities, administration is also fighting within themselves for gaining more authority over others, professors are busy in publishing meaningless research papers at a robotic speed: to get more stipends, staff is involved in selling degrees and boosting personal incomes by fixing appointments etc. In all this inane and ridiculous activity, a common student suffers.

Even the elite universities in Pakistan face a host of other problems in addition to the above- mentioned plights. The most appalling problem that displays itself on quotidian basis, are the class differences. I have practically seen the hitch of class stratification in two leading business schools of Pakistan. This owes to negligence of our professors as well as otherwise rotten moral values. It is creating a balloon of hatred and exhaustion that we cannot afford.

A poor student, belonging to an underdeveloped and poverty-stricken village, makes his way to a reputable school. He feels overwhelmed by the success he has achieved. This sense of fulfilment remains as long as he escapes his paltry and enters a big metropolitan city where the brusquely hostile attitude astonishes his expectations and chops off his wings. This stripling gets overloaded with emotions that further hew his hopes. All the aspirations to fly, desires for an untrammeled freedom to explore, cravings for library corridors, relishing friendships just shrink to a mince and serve to further widen the intellectual deserts in our broken education system. It concludes themselves in making their own specific circles inspired by that same ethnicity and emotions. They feel themselves in contrast with an overall environment that pushes them to an enclosed identity. It gives them a sense of protection against all the insecurities and self-doubts. The vulnerable presentiment hunches them down more powerfully than their fellows who are stuck back in their local towns. It aggravates their frustration and lessens learning agility. These kinds of disenfranchised and marginalized segregations within universities are a serious challenge not only to professors and students but to the academic environment. We are facing an intellectual rot and lack of tolerance in present times because of such causes.

The classist way of living of some elites in privileged societies compels the less-privileged groups to uproot their entire lives. Consequently, they get angry and refuse to see the truth. They cannot see the material conditions of our reality objectively.

Another reason is the abandonment and discouragement of social circles. Universities are the places to grow and learn as much as one can from the people around us, but sadly everyone is in a race to overpower each other. It is merely because our minds are programmed in this way.

Today, we see it as a surge of exclusivity. The world is moving past inclusion principles and adopting a hard line. Such circumstances restrict individuals to their bare-minimum duties, and they seldom play their roles. It’s heartbreaking to see no light at the end of this tunnel.

One also sees that students are more oriented towards university politics and aim to handle affairs of state. It is true that student politics is necessary if as a nation, we want to get rid of rapacious leaders. But are the students aware of the true meaning of politics? Do they know that political realism, principally, is far bigger than their fantasies about it? Otherwise, they will end up promoting the same degenerative cycle that our country is fighting today. It’s been wrongly perceived as merely lynching remarks and hurling bitter invectives on others. We think that it is the name of benefit of moment than devising a proper roadmap for prosperity. We must rethink our fancies and stop reveries because it reaps unintended consequences. We all know that at the heart of political debates lies in competing ideologies, some real and some entirely imagined as faith. We also know that among many agendas the extremists seek a return to dark ages. To counter all these negative agendas, we need to bring one fundamental change to our behaviors which is not to run with deer while supporting hound. We need hope not fear, connectivity not conspiracy, affection not hatred, if we want to fight all issues.

I think it’s a high time for our academic fraternity to ponder upon and analyze the true objectives they want to achieve and how they will be training the students. It requires limitless efforts both by parents as well as teachers to pull the whole nation out of dooming educational crisis we are headed to. We need to reestablish our views about education. We need to convince the children that education is not the destiny rather it’s a path to knowledge and character building.

The writer is a student.