Unscheduled holidays

Current academic session commenced from August 1, 2012, & so far, regular instructions have taken place for 107 days.

KARACHI: I am writing this with reference to your editorial of January 28 titled ‘Unscheduled holidays’. It has highlighted an apt and much-needed issue that needs to be addressed on an urgent basis. The current so-called democratic dispensation presided over by incompetent rulers has given very low priority to education. We have witnessed a gradual and systematic neglect in our education system for almost four decades for various reasons.

Readers may be surprised to know that almost all government colleges observe a daily working routine of a mere three hours, from nine am to noon. In fact, it’s not as if the teachers are teaching this whole time; they are only required to be present. In absence of any accountability and monitoring by superior authorities, the teaching-learning process suffers.

During my teaching assignment in Tunisia in 1974, I experienced an altogether different teaching routine. Schools, colleges and universities all over the country functioned from eight am to six pm with a two hour-break in between. There was no concept of any kind of leave except a weekly holiday on Sunday. And the result was a highly educated, civilised and cultured nation. Until and unless we enforce strict discipline in our education system, we may never be able to develop into a civilised nation.

The current academic session commenced from August 1 of last year, and so far, regular instructions have taken place for only 107 days. The current state of affairs in our society can only be corrected with proper academic discipline; otherwise we will be a society of ‘C’ and ‘D’ graders. As a test case, the government could have begun by withdrawing the Kashmir Day holiday this year — the heavens would not have fallen if students had got an extra academic day.

Cdr (retd) Najeeb Anjum PN

Principal

Sir Adamjee Institute

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2013.