February 5, 2006

IMAGINE a student who has just finished his secondary school with an A1 overall grade. He gets admitted into a good college and does well there as well. Till this point, he has not been independent, either socially or educationally. All the decisions are usually taken by his parents or elders.

But what happens next? Now it’s a point in time where one of the most important decisions of this individual’s life has to be taken. Should the parents make this decision or the student himself? The question is what career to pursue.

Let’s first try and imagine what happens in most cases. Usually it is the parents that take charge and decide the future of their child. Even if the child is confident enough to take his decision, he is usually told to that he is too young to make a good judgment.

The argument that the child is too young to be making such a decision does have some merit but then again do the parents themselves know what they are doing, or are they simply following the dictates of the time?

What happens is that after secondary school if a student feels like that he has a liking for mathematics, physics or chemistry he is told to opt for engineering. On the other hand, if he is good in biology, he is advised to become a doctor and study for an MBBS degree. There is no second thought given to this matter by the parents or the student. Both parents and child think that studying engineering or medicine is the same as studying the basic science subjects.

What people don’t understand is engineering is only remotely related to the basic science subjects. Strictly speaking, it is a field derived from the basic sciences but quite different. The topics studied are not that of basic science but the applications of the principles that have been derived from the basic sciences are instead studied. Since students usually do not know what they are going to study in, say, engineering (till the time they actually enroll in a programme and begin study), when they finally do they can find it uninteresting, especially if it turns out to be not what they had imagined. This can have devastating consequences.

If the student does not drop out, then his loss of interest tends to negatively impact academic achievement. He studies only to pass the exams and to somehow just be rid of the subject. And guess what, if he is studying in Pakistan he gets teachers who themselves don’t know nothing, can inspire nothing and who also want to hurry and just get the hell out of the lecture halls.

The student is not to be blamed for this. It is the educational system and the institutions that must take responsibility. The system offers no counselling to students or parents. This leads to the inevitable case of many a student studying something for which he or she is completely mismatched.

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)