Educare:Academic Upbringing of Young Minds!

To me the word ' educare' implies academic upbringing of young minds.As our students complete their education and after sixteen years or fewer than sixteen as their studies come to a close the students face the challenge: of what use have their studies been? Have they found in their studies only the amusement of recounting the rise and fall of nations and ideas, and retelling “sad stories of the death of kings”? Have they learned more about human nature than the man in the street can learn without so much as opening a book? Have they derived from education any illumination of our present condition, any guidance for our judgments and policies, any guard against the rebuffs of surprise or the vicissitudes of change? Have they found such regularities in the sequence of past events that they can predict the future action s of mankind or the fate of states? Have they learned to adopt and adjust themselves to the changing realities of the world? Are they well-equipped to sustain, survive and progress?

Since man is a moment in astronomic time, a transient guest of the earth, a spore of his species, a scion of his race, a composite of body, character, and mind, a member of a family and a community, a believer or doubter of a faith, a unit in an economy, perhaps a citizen in a state or a soldier in an army, we may ask under the corresponding heads – astronomy, geology, geography, biology, ethnology, psychology, morality, religion, economics, politics and war – What education (as a system) has to say about the nature, conduct, and prospects of man? It is a precarious enterprise and only a fool would try to compress twenty two centuries into twenty-two pages of hazardous conclusions. We proceed.In the Principles of Social Reconstruction (1916) Bertrand Russell writes – almost all education has a political move: it aims at strengthening some group, national or religious or even social in the competition with other groups. It is this motive in the main which determines the subject taught, the knowledge offered and the knowledge withheld and also decides what mental habits the pupils are expected to acquire. Hardly anything is done to foster the growth of mind and spirit”.

A cautious analysis of our education system reveals the fact that the above mentioned statement presents a critique of the governments educational plans and policies.

  Aside from revenue mobilization, one of the arguments for allowing the private sector to assume a larger role in the provision of education is that it would increase efficiency, as administrators become more responsive to the needs of students and their parents. But what is the evidence? Based on case studies that comparative private and public education in Columbia, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Tanzania, and Thailand, private sector students generally outperform public sector students on standardized Maths and language tests.
          According to a Chinese saying: “A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”. This first step should be strong and firm. Perhaps, the time has come when we should take that first, bold, pragmatic and futuristic step to set the highest standard of academic excellence and to further improve the standard of education and to lift  Islamabad School Of Excellence to new heights. If we want to emerge as a successful nation and don’t want to prostrate at the feet of developed nations for economic assistance, we will have to educate our youth in such a way that they become a helping hand in running the wheel of economy and not a burden on the (feeble) shoulders of the (already unstable) state. No doubt, there is a great gap between the utopian dreams and the stark realities of life, but it can be paved through with vision and action. It won’t be a smooth sailing, but a purposeful action is always better than inaction, as John F. Kennedy once said:

“There are risks and costs to a program of action but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction”.

In order to transform our youth into useful human resource, our first step should be to establish state of the ,well-equipped  best educational institutions ,curriculum development,reforms in examination system,to encourage the spirit of independent thinking and research and  to train our teachers because only better teachers can make better individuals and a nation’s strength lies in individuals – men and women.Therefore,we need to focus on important aspects of religion of teaching:

Ideology:

“I’m NOT the main source of information.”
“I’m one of the many sources of information."
“Competitions and comparisons DON'T accelerate learning”
“Cooperation and sharing accelerate learning”

Classroom Environment:

Social relationships are NOT weak among students
Social relationships are strong among students
NO Lack of positive thinking
High positive thinking
Factors of motivation are NOT external
Participants are internally motivated
Students DON'T show lack of responsibility
Students show/feel sense of responsibility and ownership
Fewer students involve for less time=FALSE
More students involve for more time
Only those who know can participate=WRONG
Everybody participates
Fear of failure during work
No fear of failure
                                                                                                                                                        
OUTCOME:o   NOT Dependent learners, NOT dependent human beings, NOT dependent nation    Independent learners, independent human beings, independent nation

                                                                                              NO Low aims for life with NO low self-image

                               High aims for life with high self-image
                                                                                          Thinking and decision abilities are  NOT low
                                                                               Thinking and decision abilities are HIGH
 & above all,People are good followers; Potential slaves=FLAWED NOTION:
      People have good leadership skills. Potential rulers .