Teachers help students differentiate between right and wrong. Unfortunately most students in our part of the world are deprived of quality teachers as the schools, colleges and universities here supposed to be producing leaders of tomorrow fail to appoint dedicated teachers.

Instead we have people just reading out from textbooks. The instructors do not care about their students. We for them are just an audience whose presence does not make much of a difference as long as the performers are paid. What one wonders then is that who is to be blamed for creating this mess. Should we be pointing a finger at the school, college or university managements for hiring such incompetent teachers? Or is the problem really due to the mentality and approach of the teachers towards their work?

The lack of attention to duty and the uncaring attitude towards their students is more prevalent in the higher education sector. Colleges and universities are considered a critical component of human development around the globe. They are responsible for proving the relevant knowledge for preparing students to excel in their respective fields.

Having studied three years at one of Pakistan’s most prestigious universities, which receives thousands of applications for admissions each year, I can confidently say that many students from my batch have not benefitted from the university in adding value to their knowledge. I often compare the course outline of several subjects with that of my friends’ studying in different universities around the world. Sadly, each time the course outline that I have may be the most comprehensive in terms of topics but it happens to be the poorest in terms of practical knowledge.

It has therefore failed to properly train and develop us in the field of marketing or finance, the two most prominent fields of business management in our country. The reason for this is the poor selection of teachers and their lack of interest in teaching us. Our teachers, basically, set papers to test our memories and the person with the best photographic memory, or the one who has learnt portions from the textbooks by heart  is awarded the highest marks. Meanwhile, the person with an analytical mind, who debates over the concepts gets the lowest marks.

One of the most important courses of study at the university level are the elective courses. Not required for graduating or fulfilling a degree, the elective courses are those that a student chooses as part of his or her major to gain extra knowledge of the field he or she wishes to specialise in. Electives around the world are therefore given the most attention with people from the industry being called to share their experiences with the students and to teach and prepare them for the corporate world.

However, at my university the elective course instructors also lack the skills to impart knowledge. Unlike in other universities where the examinations focus on cases, the teachers here give us fill-in-the-blanks and other such questions, which require us to memorise the text rather than understand it.