Is school education meeting its purpose

One cannot simply deny the importance of having a purpose behind an objective. And our experiences can substantiate the benefits of having a clearly defined purpose while approaching anything in life. Similarly, parents also send their children to schools with a purpose of imparting of necessary skills that can enable the children to design a high quality and a prosperous life in future. The rely on the design of the curriculum, the expertise and experiences of the teachers and the school environment to help their children reach that very goal and achieve a life aspired. But do schools fulfill that purpose? Are the skills necessary to succeed in life aptly imparted in students? Is there any governing body to align the lessons taught at schools with the needs in the industry; as a proxy to gauge probability of success in securing employment?

There is ample literature to substantiate that gap that exists between skills attained at university and those required for successful employment at university level. However, the root cause starts at the very basic level of education. Any position in the job market inherently expects the -candidates to bear skills like team-work, self-management, effectively managing relationships with colleagues and external stakeholders, emotions management and so on. And most of these skills are not essentially skills but part of an individual’s personality which is developed with regular practice since childhood. For example (Keller, 2021) systematically reviews how addressing health related topics like sexuality, violence etc. in school curriculum can teach students how to act responsively and builds comprehensive understanding of factors shaping their individual development. Many schools in Finland have also acting along the same lines where toddlers are taught on how to put their emotions into words for healthy expressions. These developments seem to baseline the sought-after personality traits in the corporate market but are rarely taught as part of any curriculum in Pakistan and left to be developed on their own. A dire result of this process is the pool of left-over unqualified candidates who aren’t even aware of their faults; leave apart ways to improve them.

The basic life-skills are an important part of personality development are in actual the true determinant of an individual’s success in life. Skills like emotions management, relationship building, perseverance, patience and many other are required to be taught from the beginning to make them part of the child’s personality. In contrast to the conventional schools, many modern schools are now witnessed to promote these learning through various co-curricular activities as part of their annual objectives but teaching these skills dedicatedly and providing equal opportunities to learn them is still seen to be an untapped area. The ask of the time is to revamp curriculum around these topics for attunement to these qualities in a step wise and consistent manner. Behavioral experts need to be part of school faculty to continuously monitor and impart the right habits in day-to-day activities. Special attention needs to be given to the ones who fail on these traits rather then penalized and discredited. But on contrary a major focus of many schools is seen to be on technical curriculums which, no doubt is necessary as well, but is incomplete without training of the right attitude to carry with the knowledge. And it demands a shift in approach to education in order to reach the ultimate goal of schooling that is to prepare students for a promising future.

Bibliography

Keller, E. K. (2021, July 22). frontiersin. Retrieved from Frontiersin Website: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2021.660878/full

Author: Danial Pirani