What is Education?
It is a concrete fact that education is responsible for an advanced society. It reforms human character and makes them well-mannered and cultured. Education is gaining knowledge of surroundings. It is the act or process of imparting general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, preparing intellectually for mature life,
acquiring particular knowledge or skills, as for profession. Different Authors defined it in different ways. According to Herbert Spencer, “Education is complete living”. Ulilch Robert said, “Education is the constant instruction among people and the objective world. For William B Yeasts, “It is not filling a bucket but lightening a fire”.
According to Horace Mann, “Knowledge must bring the practice as nearly as possible to theory”.
In Urdu, education is known as “Taleem”. The word “taleem” has been derived from an Arabic word “ilm” meaning “to seek knowledge”. A person without studies or training is like a body without soul, a rainbow without colors, a bird without wings, an eye without eyesight, a brain without intellect and a song without notes. Educated people play important role in reforming society and its social norms.
Our religion Islam also teaches us to find knowledge. Hazrat Muhammad said, “Getting knowledge is mandatory for every person”. The founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, once said in his sermon, “Education is a matter of life and death for Pakistan.
For every child, his mother’s lap is the first institute. Children always copy their parents. Parents should play an ideal role in front of their children so that their children can take up positive things from them.
Education in Pakistan:
In Pakistan, there has been a significant establishment of numerous educational institutes to serve this purpose. The education system in Pakistan is categorized into five stages. The initial stage, known as the Primary Stage or Early one, encompasses classes from first to fifth grade. Following this, the second stage, referred to as Elementary Education, covers classes from sixth to eighth grade. In this stage, students usually study Arabic and English. It is important to note that primary and elementary education forms the foundation for students, enabling them to progress to high schools.
In the third stage, known as High Education, students attend classes ninth and tenth, which are commonly referred to as Matriculation. Moving forward, the fourth stage encompasses classes eleventh and twelfth and is recognized as Higher Education or Intermediate. The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) conducts annual exams for Matriculation and Intermediate levels. Lastly, the final stage is Vocational Education, which is provided in universities. Vocational or professional knowledge equips individuals with the necessary skills and knowledge to pursue a specific job or profession.
Ways/Types of Education in Pakistan:
In Pakistan, there are three ways for getting knowledge: 1. Formal Education: Through schools, colleges, educational institutes, etc. 2. Non-formal Education: Distance education System. 3. Informal one: Through our daily life activities.
Problems in the way of Education in Pakistan:
Nowadays, Pakistan’s education is suffering from various troubles. Some
of them are below:
1. Outdated Education system.
2. Lack of Ideological Base.
3. Defective Examination System.
4. Limited Educational resources.
5. Unawareness of the aim of knowledge.
6. Shortage of Teachers.
7. Lack of Co-Curricular Activities.
8. Unemployment.
These problems cause many others in the society. The employment youths can easily fall victim to social evils. Thus, instead of becoming noble citizens, they turn out to be criminals. It is a fact that an evil generates other evils. Therefore, the society yields to corruption,theft, murder, kidnapping and terrorism.
Solutions:
To prevent such a horrible situation, we must take solid steps to modify our schooling system. The following steps may be helpful in this regard.
(i) Technical and professional training should be initiated without any delay.
(ii) We must increase the educational attainment level.
(iii) We should improve and better the system of examination. The lowest passing limit should be 50% instead of 33%.
(iv) We should hire new teachers. The salaries of the teachers should be handsome enough so that they must pay full attention to their duty
without facing any financial problems.
(v) Improved the curriculum according to present age.
(vi)The country should allocate a significant amount in its budget for this purpose. (vii) Applying innovative and aggressive approach to technical and e-commerce would raise the status of our country in the world.
The secret of all the developed countries lies in its knowledge and unity. No country can make progress without studies. We should promote studies in Pakistan so that our country’s name can be included in the list of developed countries. May ALLAH rewards us with our efforts.