Being a citizen of a country where life is not a piece of cake and moving ahead is not an easy task either, parents invest colossal amount of time and money over their children’s education.
REALITY CHECK
Being a citizen of a country where life is not a piece of cake and moving ahead is not an easy task either, parents invest colossal amount of time and money over their children’s education. The reason is simple: education carves out the best in a child. Unfortunately, when the time for acquiring professional education arrives, students face several difficulties, especially in the unprivileged colleges and universities of the public sector.
Without mentioning names, I would like to highlight a prominent issue I encountered. It is not only a personal experience; many students face the same problem. Students of undergraduate or graduate programmes, specifically those studying in a government university, become victims of a seriously flawed system. A system where the scions of powerful are given privileges and concessions, but the ones from ordinary families are powerless; they are absolutely nowhere. Teachers are many, but teaching is rare. If there are somehow, fortunately, a bunch of qualified teachers in the department, then the rules and regulations are biased.
A teacher can skip classes or even cancel them at the last minute despite being present in the department. Whereas, if a seriously ill student is irregular and takes some time off, he is not allowed to appear in the exam even if it sets him a whole year back. Sometimes, even bright students are deliberately failed if they are passing with flying colours only because it hurts the ego of the teacher. Students have witnessed teachers not allowing a student with 40 percent attendance to sit for the exams while allowing a zero percent attendance student from the same department to take the exam. Students suffer at the hands of moody and unethical faculties only because the powerless always suffer under the powerful.
Moreover, parents are not welcomed by the office staff in most educational institutions in public sector. It is very common for parents to be treated with rudeness by the office staff. The faculty either does not meet or refuse to address a parent’s concerns about their child’s issues. Teachers, being the high authorities, often transfer their part of responsibilities to the self-chosen ‘Class Representatives’ who misuse their privilege while enjoying their full-fledge prejudiced duties.
The question is why is it so? Aren’t the victims humans? If this is the kind of education and treatment we are providing to our future generations, then where would Pakistan stand in the queue of the enlightened and learned? If that doesn’t act as an eye opener then I doubt anything ever will.
It is high time we realize there is a need to put ourselves in others’ shoes, stand up against the ills of our society and raise our voice above the voice of the wrongdoers. It is not only a lesson dispersed by our religion, Islam, but a globally accepted fact that humans must be treated as humans regardless of differences in power, age, caste and creed. De-motivating and disgracing a bunch of gems will not only result in destroying their self-confidence but could also become a cause of undesirable events in the society. Pakistan will only bloom if the coming as well as the present generations be provided with quality education system.
