IS PROVIDING EDUCATION A MERE COMMERCIAL VENTURE?

Since the world entered the new technological era, new concepts and inventions came into existence. Man setting foot on the moon was believed to be impossible. But the moon landing on 21 July 1969, had proven our ancestors wrong. Goals which our ancestors believed were unattainable have been achieved. It was yesterday when Alexander Graham Bell invented the first telephone, but today, after one century of the invention of the telephone, we have fast speed internet connections which connect you to other end of the world within minutes where live video conversations are possible. The question is, how do we survive in such a changing world? How do we adapt to the new technology and machinery which our lives revolve around? The answer lies in education. Education helps in the cultivation of skills and professions. It helps us attain the mental and moral level of knowledge required for basic survival and further advancements. Education is the core of our survival since time immemorial. Providing education for the younger generation has been our duty for a better tomorrow. But today, it would not be wrong to say that, providing education has been depicted as a form of a commercial business. Universities around the world are competing against each other to reach the first rank. New methodologies and programs are being drafted and implemented by them to attract the most number of the “stronger” group of students for enrollment as a means of acquiring the most number of credit to themselves. While the reputed universities are successful in attracting the stronger group of students, the other colleges get to select the unfortunate students. As a result, the better quality of education, the better research programs are concentrated in a handful of universities around the globe. In the run to reach the top rank, today most universities portray educational irrelevant benefits to the students in their catalogues. A winning football team, new high-tech facility dorm rooms, sorority parties, etcetera. These “benefits” usually tends to stray the students from their main objectives and goals, resulting in poor quality of education being received. The market strategies used by these universities are no longer education oriented. It provides for the attraction of the most number of students with higher fee’s thus increasing their credit points. Education should not be about increasing credits and reaching the first rank. Shouldn’t it be about providing equal education to everyone? The same quality of materials and lectures to be attainable by a student either in the U.S. or Asia? The whole point of universities is to provide education for the necessary. Be it the richest or the poorest. The time has come to liberalize the universities from market oriented programs and ranking systems.

Fathimath Shafneez