[author image=”http://hunzanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/NOOR.jpg” ]Noreen Akhtar,Hailing from Karimabad, Hunza, Student of Asian University for Women. She is an under- graduate student doing her minors in Mathematics and her major will be Environmental Sciences.[/author]
My intentions of writing this article are to throw light upon the fact that a society develops when the students there are treated equally regardless of their talent. I am not differentiating among the institutions or students according to their talent.
Talent is a quality God gifts not to all of us. Some students, who are talented, get good grades and then admission in a good university then a good job and then a better life ahead. While, there are some other students who work hard their whole lives but because they do not get good gradesbecause of lack of talent in that particular field, they suffer to get admission in a good university and if they do not then their career ruins.
Let’s think about the education facilities students are provided by in different schools of GB. There are many private as well as government institutions that educate students, some with better facilities while some lack basic facilities. Among these institutions, schools run by AKES are quite famous because they provide students with better facilities and there is an environment of competition so students work hard. However, if the institutions will only admit talented students and their admissions will be based upon merit then it is quite obvious that students will compete and get in to good universities and will have a better future because firstly, they are already talented and secondly, they are again getting chance to study in an institution which polishes their hidden aptitudes more. Now, let’s talk about those students who are medium. They are rejected in these entry tests and when they join other private or government schools, they are not provided by the basic facilities (this does not mean that they are not good institutions. It means that they need to improve and they are not the only institutions to improve).
If I talk about the government institutions, then I have visited some of them which do not even let students to use internet and computers. In this modern age, where kids are given iPod’s in some places, our students do not have access to internet and computers. I myself have seen students playing for the whole day in these schools and colleges very often and come home earlier. I even asked from some of them and they told me that this is what happens in government institutions. I heard from some parents saying the same ‘this is what happens in government schools’. Why this dialogue is common? Are those students responsible for this situation? No, they are not. They might be but, responsible’s of such institutions do not have a defined policy to educate students. Teachers and lecturers are not serious with the syllabus. Plagiarism culminates during exam time and students start preparing notes to plagiarize instead of preparing to give exam independently.
Society develops when its students are treated equally. We have three options. Either AKES policy of selecting students on merit bases should be changed and all the students should be admitted regardless of their talent so that all of them could progress equally or other private and government institutions need to provide students with better facilities so that the students who do not get admitted to AKES especially Higher Secondary Schools could also get a quality education. Furthermore, the environment too needs to be changed. Teachers should help all the students to show their talent instead of just marking them fail and drop them out of the school. Third option is that, both these options can be implemented. There might be schools which are progressing even better then AKES schools. However, people still prefer these schools because the environment students are provided with is unique.
Few parents sacrifice for their kids in terms of economy while most of the parents cannot. AKESschools (though provide better environment), have high fee ranges because of which most of the parents according to my experience do not send their kids even if they get admitted. The fee starts from 4000 or 4500 rupees and there are parents whose monthly pay is 4000 or even less. In such situation, what should be done? There have been cases where such students are rejected because they could not pay fee. Is this the right way? A capital NO. Scholarships should be provided to such students and if they are provided then we need to think whether this scholarship policy is correctly implemented or not.
Teachers are builders of nation and their efforts help students to make a good career, it does not matter if the students are talented or not. Everyone is talented. The only difference is that this talent varies from students to students. Now, it’s the responsibility of our educational institutions to help students do not kill their talent just because they cannot study medical, engineering and computer science or cannot pay fee.
I hope that this article will not offend any individual or organization because change is necessary and we need to accept this reality that we need to change our educational policies.
