Without a goal, one cannot score. The same is applicable in the academic career of a ward; in order to attain the sustained success, a learner is expected to follow a particular trajectory.
However, the lack of career counselling in our educative policies has been having the very careers of our students compromised; the other factor being that of zealously and irrationally following the suit of those individuals who have succeeded in their careers of choice.
Both the aforesaid issues have been ingredients of the recipe of disaster for the learners academically and professionally. It is a thousand pities that we live in an era of guided missiles and misguided students.
In lieu of the offering of guided missiles for engagement in the combat through the technological innovation, the pauperised state of ours should have made our learners critical thinkers with the intent to make them glean the clarity of purpose in life, or it should have, at least, educated and empowered the educators so as to make them instruct their learners to follow the pathway to their occupational triumph.
The students who shall be held responsible and accountable for the prosperity of theirs and that of the state have faltered in even following the appropriate pathway to glory. The very lack of direction has been changing their aspirations into pipe dreams. One must be mindful of the fact that what has worked wonders for a learner, might not necessarily be fruitful for some other pupil. The usage of one’s grey matter in such an equation is quite essential.
The pursuance of educative aims must be contingent upon one’s interest in a specified major as opposed to being impressed by the actions of other victorious learners and the ongoing trend of opting for particular fields of study with the sole intent to make a fortune. Education per se provides an impetus so as to make an individual strive for becoming a better person than he currently is; contrary to making him a coining works.
However, our tutees of the Islamic Republic have been havering in comprehending the obvious since time immemorial.
It is utterly scandalous that learners, generally, at first, pursue their Secondary School Certificate (SSC) programme in Computer Science or Biology, which is equivalent to 10 years of education; thereafter, they proceed towards the attainment of a Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) in Commerce, which is 12 years of learning; thereupon, they glean a Bachelor of Arts (BA), which is 14 years of education.
The acquisition of knowledge in three different fields of study is richly indicative of a student being thoroughly misguided and indecisive in his vocational objectives. Furthermore, we, as a nation, must learn to accept that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Having the snippets of information of a multitude of branches of knowledge shall have credentials conferred upon learners; however, they shall never be capable of excelling in a particular discipline of knowledge.
The zigzag and circuitous path to educational and professional success has the potential to take the individuals to a road to nowhere.
The powers that be have been in the habit of administering the state via WhatsApp; however, they need to wake up and smell the coffee before one of their baristas proceeds towards searching for a job in the capacity of a security guard due to the lack of counselling proffered to him by the government-owned educational institutions, which have been unsatisfactorily functioning under their so-called ‘competent authority’, which resultantly made him shilly-shally for the entirety of his life pertaining to the crucial decisions.
Syed Muhammad Fahad is an English lecturer, teacher's trainer, grammarian and CSS mentor
