Arfa Syeda Zahra

Educationist Arfa Syeda Zahra in an interview enlightens audience with her thought provoking insights about existing education system of Pakistan, utility of social media and life as it should be. Give it a read and it will make your day.

I know it will hurt, but still I would say loud and clear, one who is not capable of bearing a loss does not get to enjoy any success as well. Since ages we have tried to prove that a piece of paper known as ‘degree’ is the most valuable thing a person could ever acquire. For students to pursue that degree, we have designed an education system and syllabus (that includes quizzes, multiple choice questions) in a way as if we are trying to teach parrots about how to speak stuff merely by cramming and not by knowing. It is a dilemma that we, teachers teach human beings who are intelligent creatures but alas that we don’t teach them the utility of their brains and the intellect it encompasses.
The process of grooming is missing from educational system in the current scenario. When my generation was young, we used to get a combination of education as well as grooming, but nowhere can these two words be seen written together in the motto of any educational institution. Another interesting account happened in Pakistan during the era of general Zia-ul-haq that, he snatched away our right to converse, to ask questions and to be critical. So, the societies who forget to ask questions, how can we expect them to find the answers?
We were handed over the degrees with the sole purpose of finding an occupation, a job to live the rest of our lives with, I will die one day saying this, “Our life needs an occupation, occupation doesn’t need our whole lives”.
And when religion intruded in our lives, every single dream and ambition of our lives started revolving around the pursuit of 70 that are promised in the life hereafter. We are increasing the burdens on our shoulders and not trying to expand our intellect and knowledge at all, the proof of which is that, teachers are not allowed to encourage students to read, explore or research material outside the prescribed syllabus.
You say that we need passions in our lives; your prime minister says that you will find peace only in your grave, so you tell me that why a person who is in pursuit of that peace would be passionate about anything in this world? Rather, he would just sit back and wait for the death to fill him with the said peace.
How would people lead considerable lives in a society where there is no justice, where there is discrimination on the basis of race, religion or language and where a specific class of society is above the law?
If you ask me about the era of social media, I would say that we are not fully aware of its usefulness. We just don’t know how to use social media positively. We are not aware that the same tool can prove to be so effective to teach and groom our younger generation in an unconventional more interesting way! But look how brutally we are wasting the very same platform.
When I was growing up, in that era, there was a culture of diary writing and it used to be a secret and personal business. Now there is ‘status writing’ culture. But on the contrary to diary writing, now as soon as we express our opinions or emotions on social media in the form of statuses and no one comments, it becomes a depressive thought that why no one hasn’t seen or expressed their opinions over my status.
If you want to know yourself, you should bow your head and look yourself into the mirror. One should constantly go through the process of self-evaluation as one must know the negative and positive aspects of his/her personality; only then one could work on the flaws and build on the existing strengths.