Many years after independence we
still deal with issues such as illiteracy. For the society it is not about the
people who are not formally deemed as educated but the ones deemed as educated
but truly are not. One of the problems faced by many professional courses is
the amount of graduates pursuing jobs not related to their field. “It’s not the
traitors you should be afraid of but your friends”. You know a traitor will
harm you so you expect that from them but a friend can turn its back and stab
you’. Critical thought deals not with what is already evident but the flipside
of events.
We are constantly churning out
batches and batches of uneducated literates. It is impossible to define the
term education but literates, on the other hand is pretty simple. A literate is
one legally qualifies to be able to read and write. Simply put one who can read
this text is a literate. One who can interpret this text is educated. There is
a huge distinction between the two. The distinction lies in productivity. There
are also educated illiterates what we call colloquially ‘street smart’. When
our education systems became anesthetic in nature we applauded it for being
‘Global’. Now when our economies fail who do we look at? When our governments
fail who do we turn to? When our societies crumble who is it that we blame?
Is the light off? Is it cold? Do you
want that? Are you hungry? When you studied in school how many times did teachers
discouraged students from asking questions. The death of questioning is the
death of knowledge. If students knew the answer to everything they would not be
sitting in this class, so if I am a student it’s your duty to answer me. It is
a basic right that is thrown to garbage in every institution. If you think that
elite institutions are different they are not. For a fact every institution is
the same. A question is greeted with the sub text ‘are you that dumb?’
We are in an education system where
common sense is by-passed by age-old beliefs. When you bake a cake it’s
important that you make sure every ingredient is weighed and added at the right
time otherwise the cake while baking falls and a huge crack emerges. We always
hear activists say “we need to educate the people” Unfortunately when they were
meant to be educated nobody made sure that they were actually being educated.
It’s not rocket science, a few reforms and this generation can become an
educated informative society.
Madeeha Naqeeb
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