Education and Being Educated: 

General perspective of why, what and where we are now.

With the paradigm shift of education becoming a service business it became highly competitive and commercialized in today’s environment. In between this commercialization process the true purpose of education is kind of missing and the interest of youth and the type/kind of education that develops their potential and converting them to a personalities where required by the job market has been sidelined. So there is a huge need of responsible intervention for correcting the system of delivery, and other systematic accepts. For a country like us who is running with corrupted political system and governing uncertainties it’s a must the intervention of private sector for backbone areas such as education. But if the commercialization continues to grow and spread in such a way without proper checking mechanism there is a 100% possibility to destroy anything and everything which we have developed so far.  Same time it will be exploited and manipulated for profit in higher education.

Education is a turning point for each individual. General idea behind education is dissemination of knowledge and know-how which will further assist each individual to find the life surviving profession. It will assist individuals to have a better standard of living while ensuring the social and economic well-being of the country, its people and the society as a whole. The core objectives of education are developing skills, attitude and knowledge relating to each individual who is engaging with the process. With the concerns of today’s, changes it is questionable that we are anymore attached with those three objectives or not. In that case the whole educational process is in a tragedy. The concepts and the value have changed and education is shifted from “quality education” to “economic education”, and from “educated societies” to “qualified societies”. In that case knowledge becomes economized and education becomes a profitable commodity. And the delivery process becomes a commercial transaction. Therefore the individuals’ attitude of earning a qualification and becoming an educated citizen shifted to buying a qualification and becoming a qualified citizen.

The general understanding of commercialization of education is privatizing the ownership and the management or the governing boards of educational entities where investments are made by private individuals or groups with the motive of generating profit for their investments. The general misconception is all public educational institutions are good and all private institutes are bad. “Is it correct all the time?” is a serious concern that we should find answers first. So making a perception change is a must to create a positive ground to address this issue as a national debate. On the other hand private institutions should come in clear way to fit the expected quality standards of higher education. However with the changes the social and cultural mentality of acquiring a higher educational qualification also drastically changed. As a result validity and identity of higher education as a commercial commodity that can be purchased as any other has become permanent while replacing the importance of it as core requirement of a moral development of any human. So it’s now clear the purpose of students who consume it as service and the expectations are clearly outlined as obtaining a well-paid job, purchasing a car, building a house and etc.  Therefore the most of private sector higher educational institutes are also aligned with this market requirement and willing to cater to the increasing demand. In that case, the quality and the other parameters of proper education automatically became un-important or less recognized. So the concept of value- based learning is no more a popular concept and everything measured under the ability of spending power in monitory terms. To overcome the daily developing negativity through this process  that everyone know yet not willing to accept they have developed their own justification of  saying aspects of theoretical grounds are irrelevant and also disconnected from the practical world. 

Anyway knowing or unknowingly finally the victimizes are always the younger generation who are ready to step in to the next stage of their life. All these things will finally minimize their ability to embrace the value of being as ethical citizen. Students with less class room experiences and social interaction with same age community will end up as socially paralyzed individuals with less emotional tolerance and courage to face difficult situations. Therefore as responsible citizens what we need to do is encourage students to get the experience of being a student and let them realize the true value and benefit of correct education and then welcome them in to the corporate world. It’s a must that everyone whoever involved with the process of education being educated and aware about the connection between knowledge and ethical practices.