Education and creativity

Research has shown that academic stress has a significant negative impact on a student’s performance and creativity. In Pakistan, most of the students are exposed to a heavy burden of assignments, projects, homework, frequent quizzes and exams that all lead to immense mental pressure. More research (Byron, Kristin, Khazanchi and Nazarian, 2010) confirms it that “in high evaluative contexts where there is high stress, the creative performance is quite low, and vice versa”.

Pakistan is no exception. Universities have confined students to stick to specific bookish concepts and focus on their grades. This not only kills the creativity of students to think out of the box but also limits their knowledge to their academic books. Students have been found reluctant to study philosophy, astronomy, history, literature and arts etc. Because neither in colleges nor in universities are they motivated to read non-academic books. Therefore, certain effective changes should be made in our old-fashioned education system. In order to create true educated and learned alumnae, institutes must be beyond 'mass producers of degrees'.

Sami Sahil Baloch

Nokkundi