Academic and Career Counseling from the Grassroots Level

Written by Sufyan Aquil

When observing the education scene in Pakistan, the common phrases to hear are: “it has become commercialized”, “it has become a money-making machine”, “it has become a ‘business’ industry rather than a platform for public welfare”, and so on. Hearing such observations, one can do nothing but nod helplessly in agreement, and wonder where things have taken a turn for the worse.



Personally, I think the root cause for this scenario lays in the neglect that parents show when enrolling their children in schools, colleges, even universities. This neglect is also manifested in the behavior of the instructors at all levels, which makes the mind of the student a very confused one. It is known for a fact that a mind, in its formative years, is the most receptive, but this fact is not generally taken into account, and every child is put through an education system that is largely primitive and outdated, thereby wasting the unique talents and abilities that the young mind possesses.

From a global perspective, we observe the well-known education systems, like those in the West, to accommodate students in a very flexible manner, which appears to be modified for individual persons. This room to maneuver gives the students opportunities to explore their potential, sometimes within the academic setting and sometimes, outside of it. This approach results in the injection of bright, fresh graduates into the corporate world, who bring with them new ideas, thereby ensuring that the business environment stays current and progressive.

There has been talk of implementing a similar approach in Pakistan as well, but it has been taken up only by the private education sector, and by only a few institutions within it. Some glimpses of brilliance that have been highlighted in the recent past are Ali Moeen Nawazish (21 A-Level As) and Ibrahim Shahid (23 O-Level As). Admitted, such are exceptional achievements, but then again, these are achievements that simply cannot be replicated regularly. Rather, attending to too many diverse things at once is even discouraged by experts, for it does not allow the average mind to maintain focus and sustain the pressure.

The need of the moment is for parents and education counselors to pinpoint the exact interests of the school-going children and to permit and encourage them to excel in those respective fields as they venture out of school and into higher education, thereby expanding their interest-oriented achievements to encompass the whole education system in Pakistan. For that to happen, I personally think we could take lessons from the more developed education systems in the world. We look towards the more developed economies for business advice; I do not see why we could not turn to them for advice about bettering our education system also.

An overview of how modern education systems operate has been given earlier. Based on my personal belief, I hold the guidance and counseling provided to the students throughout their education as the key to success for those education systems. I also believe that implementing a similar approach in Pakistan would lead to students exploring their individual capabilities and maintaining constant interest in acquiring education that suits them, hence excelling, not just academically, but also in other spheres of life.

I hold lack of support, guidance and counseling – both academic as well as parental – to be the cause of the overall student population in Pakistan being scared to explore their individual academic interests. We have seen classic cases of ‘following the crowd’ over the years, with the business marketplace experiencing heavy inflow of doctors, engineers, IT specialists, chartered accountants, business graduates, et cetera. This observation points towards the fact that neither parents, nor academic instructors counsel the young generations towards pursuing diverse academic interests. Their focus is only on a very limited variety of professions for their children and students, such as those highlighted above.

Such behavior by parents and instructors alike, aids in justifying the public’s concerns of the education sector becoming a business enterprise, with a focus on making money through multiple intakes every year, in study programs that offer little or no diversification. As a result, courses and syllabus - from under three to over 30 years old - are taught in a rote manner, which does not spark any ingenuity from the recipients, and which translates into huge numbers of students of the usual genres pouring into the business market, which in turn is clogged up as far as job opportunities are concerned.

In such a scenario, I am of the opinion that a need exists equally for parents and academic instructors, to realize the diverse potentials of their children and students, and to bring these potentials out, nourish and polish them through proper academic and career counseling, as they progress within their school, college, and university years. For a child to discover and make use of his inherent talent, he needs his parents, first of all, to realize and acknowledge what is truly best for him, and to allow him to pursue his interests. At this point, the academic instructors have to step in to provide the professional guidance and counseling, which is required to groom and polish the child’s personality with reference to his respective field of interest.

There is no short cut to building a better Pakistan. But through realizing the potential of the young and the youth of Pakistan, and through giving them room to exercise that potential, we can be sure to see a brilliant Pakistan in the future. Such has been the course of action for other countries, and huge have been the rewards for those countries. Similar rewards can be ours to have as well, but our approach has to be similarly positive too.

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