Manufacturing Students
By Naushad Khalique

Presently various educational institutions are engaged in producing crops of students than a breed of learners. Before I proceed to what I mean let me explain the difference between a student and a learner. To me, a person is a born learner; in fact the learning starts in the womb. At the same time ’Learner’ is a universal term that applies on every creation that is living. Learning requires no boundaries and no typical methods of gaining knowledge; instead what it needs is just a will. Learning is a voluntary act and is free of any financial outlay. A human is a learner.

The present system of educational institutions in our country is one that gives birth to a student and not to a learner. It sets boundaries for a human for learning, which is a first step to kill the innate qualities of a human. A human even learns from the mistakes committed either by him or from any related experiences. He brings changes into his behavior and thinking accordingly. A question of its intensity may arise, but it does happen somewhere that may not be so obvious. The term ’student’ affects the psycho-status of a human and he takes the dependency for granted. It is my experience that whenever I have asked any young fellow about his/her present business, they have always answered to be studying. It seems that they have taken ’studentship’ as their profession and being a ’student’ their designation. They have started thinking that since they are ’students’ they need a ’teacher’ who must know everything they want to learn and is to be found somewhere in a building called school, college or university.

Who has put this in their minds? I don’t think it is by their ’teachers’ or by any guide but this seems like a product of the present system of education where mostly the lecture method is adapted to ’teach’. The system has also set some boundaries for learning. The boundaries set commonly for a human for learning are building if you don’t have a place like a school, college or university you cannot learn. Some one who can explain them the terminologies of chosen subject  a feeling of dependency and full stop to co-authoring?

Criteria of assessment human can only be considered learned when s/he passes the exams set by some specific person(s)?

Specialization you will have to choose a proper scheme of subjects that suits the institution.

Competition you are always a competitor and need to follow the ’the survival of fittest’ theory.

Adding to the sour, the tuition centers have also jumped into the scenario.

A few days back a friend of mine requested me to arrange a private tutor for his 8 years old son. I could not convince him even after conducting a long argument session for letting his sibling define his own meanings and learn himself at his own. He had just one sentence to counter all my arguments and that was “you don’t know the market needs”. I had to succumb to his point of view and successfully located a private tutor for his son. The gentleman was a teacher from a renowned school of the city and agreed to teach my friend’s son against a heavy amount as fee. According to him he was well educated and since had done his Bachelors in Education, he was a professional and was no less than a specialist, surgeon, lawyer, etc. and must charge his services as they do. This message of him made me conclude that a professional teacher can only produce a professional student.

Another difference that I have felt is that a learner can guide others, while a student can not. Psychologically, a ’student’ has a feeling of dependency and is always in search of sources of study; I mean ’study’, while a learner does not ’search’ for a source of study. To a learner every thing is a source of knowledge and studying it is the habit of a learner and not of a student.

I have seen that the education, day by day, is becoming a commodity of sale and is being marketed as if it is not bought, the survivor will never pass the tests after death; and to purchase that commodity one must carry a designation of ’student’. Those who have chosen their profession as teaching, most of them have forgotten the real meaning of it. They think since teaching is their profession and they are the teachers, the rest knows nothing. I met a man with his son in a public transport - bus, while going to my office; he was very angry on his son and was scolding him upon not paying attention to his studies in school for which he had to work 8 hours a day and 24 days of a month to pay school, all the way. We were on the same seat so I asked him the specific reason of him being very angry upon his son. According to him the day earlier, he visited his son’s school and met the teacher, who told father that his son spent most of the time out of the class because he thinks he is a bird and can fly but the class was a cage to him. And this caused him to fail in the class tests of Urdu and Religion. The boy was a grade 2 ’student’. A sensible person can very finely locate where the problem lies.

I know the terms ’student’ and ’learner’ are frequently used replacing each other, but at the same time this sets a pattern for every institution to dominate. A feeling of competition, dependency and walking in just one direction, curbs the ability of thinking out of the box. And see what does it do? The answer is “it manufactures the students”.