What If The Fault Is In Our Education System?

Article in brief: The author pens down her concerns about how the youth is dealing with education.

We live at a golden time where the world is changing at a fast pace. As we all know, the UAE has been undergoing a constant advancement in education, technology and several other fields.

To break the population into groups, it’s easy to say that the world is divided into readers and non-readers, learners and non-learners. It’s as clear as daylight that education is the key to life. Though education can get a bit too draining and time-consuming due to attending classes and keeping up with the readings, assignments and exams, I find it to be the most important thing to me.

It came to my attention through observing the rants of some school-students through the social media that most of them simply hate education. They find it to be more of a daunting responsibility to fulfill rather than a way to enlightenment. It reached a point where those students, especially the ones at a young age, find reading to be something that should not go anywhere beyond school.

As bold as this statement may be, I blame the educational system and the way students choose to handle commitments. As an experiment, I have been trying to get a small group of pre-teens to start reading. The response I kept on getting was that reading was boring.

I started explaining how important reading is and how it can take you to different places when you’re just sitting at one place. They tried to reason with me by describing that they have done enough reading to last a lifetime from school. One of the boys in the group said, “I will never open a book that has nothing to do with school”

Getting that reply, it became apparent that maybe some schools take the fun out of learning with the excess stress. Thus, they make reading feel more like a task than a fun activity to occupy their time with. It’s sad how those children will grow to hate learning simply because they’re overworked and are not given enough time to enjoy their experiences as school-students.

I am not claiming that schools give no activities for students to enjoy – however, the work might overweigh the fun. In addition, the lack of interesting presentation of the syllabus given by most teachers is making some students hate school even more. Students get a large amount of information shoved into their brains simply by reading a text or having it written on a board; there is nothing interesting about that.

On the other hand, some schools do provide fun activities and present the syllabus in an interesting manner to grab the attention of young students. A number of students choose not to look beyond education being a daily thing, and simply focus on how often they have to be a part of it, rather than finding a way to connect with it. Education is a two way street between the teacher and the student, if one of them doesn’t give his/her all into the process, no progress would be made.

Education is quite important, and it upsets me to see its value decreased by some students nowadays. Learning should make you eager to know more, not count the minutes for the class to be over. It’s way more than memorizing a chunk of papers only to forget everything the moment after taking the exam.

It makes you wonder, is our educational system doing it wrong and does it rob our youth from its beauty? Does it really deprive students from the core and essence of the information they’re being taught? Do the students exaggerate or are they really stressed?

The educational system should make greater efforts to find a balance between educating and showing how education is a good thing rather than just a duty. Students should be nurtured with information and not force-fed with seeds of precious knowledge that will go uncared for.