Education is human´s life. Life – full of problems. Richest and most advanced societies also face severe problems all the time. In the struggle of making our life easier and mechanical we have accepted more responsibilities for ourselves. Problems could be taken as oddities and troubles of the life. Human can´t avoid problems, but difference is made with the techniques spirit and courage we face them with, and seek their solutions.  For going into the depth of problems, humans have turned to  specialization, which has resulted in the compartmentalization of the societies.  This compartmentalization and division has weakened the linkages between the people of same society, and for many, it is another problem again.

Education encompasses all segments of the society, and has various disciplines to specialize in. In education, there are different categories of problems; institutional problems, policy problems, accreditation problems, inappropriate curriculum and lack of proper facilities, incompetency of teachers and lack of students´ interest in learning, and the like. But the crux of the matter is that our younger generations are losing their interest in real knowledge and wisdom. Our youth is not interested in skills, others´ experiences and research findings, theories and formulas.They are more interested in the piece of paper called degree. No matter if it is fake or genuine.  Unfortunately,with this tendency, youth´s majority never bother about the realitythat they are accepting to lead a fake person´s life. Without having true love for knowledge and wisdom and without equipping themselves with necessary skills of any field, they generally like only a garb of wise people? With all of their inabilities and incompetency,any way, they have to think whether they will cheat the world for the rest of their life, or will like to lead a genuine and truthful person´s life? Isn´t it fair to deserve first and then desire? Leaving the curricula and preparing according to the structured formats aside, we have to think about the meager number of genuine teachers, torch bearer of the field, who are available to transfer true knowledge with devotion and love. There are dozens of problem areas in the field of education, but main thing remains the lack of sincerity on the part of students and teachers.

It was Aristotle who said that educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all. By saying this he emphasizes the ethical aspect of education and human life. At the same time he is the one who radically transformed most areas of knowledge. He made contributions in logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany, politics, agriculture, medicine and theatre. They were the people, like Aristotle, who taught tolerance and rational thinking and enlightened their students by telling them to listen others with open mind. Aristotle believes that it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. He knew that knowledge is a long and troublesome voyage. He says that the roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweet.No doubt that it is hard to consider education without values. Nevertheless, skill acquiring , and equipping oneself with necessary information is preparing to live a genuine person´s life.

It goes without saying that our educational institutions need to impart latest knowledge and techniques of different disciplines, teachers need to be very alert about the needs of the time in their fields and keep themselves abreast of the latest knowledge, which is really difficult and requires full devotion. Teachers need to present themselves as role model of true lovers of knowledge, disciplined and honest in every respect. Thesociety expects from them a very high moral character. They are not preachers like Ulema, they are supposed to be enlightened people, living simple and true life and presenting themselves as true examples of those who practice high moral values. They are not there to amalgamate the training with knowledge, morality with science, data with information, information with knowledge and knowledge with wisdom and wisdom with vision and enlightenment.

The great American leader anti racist and Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. in one of his famous speech says: `The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically, intelligence plus character- that is the goal of education. `Martin Luther struggled hard against racism in American society, appealed the noble emotions of the citizens against apartheid, andat the same time strived against blind emotionalism. (To be continued)

(The writer is a veteran media academician and serving as Chairman of the Department of Mass Communication at Lahore Leads University He can be reached at [email protected] )