Problems of Students from Gilgit-Baltistan
By Mehvish Murtaza
Adversity tries us and leads us towards opportunities and it is a kind of knocking of it at our doors. A famous Chinese proverb says, “When the winds of opportunities were blowing, some people built walls against that and some other people made windows in their walls to welcome that”. This saying leaves us with two options to cope with the problems. Either give up and surrender or show the problems your potential to cope with them. The life of students is full of problems. These problems at times intimidate them. This issue is very important to be discussed because the students of today are the fathers of tomorrow and the architects of the nation.
The students of Gilgit-Baltistan are not different from those of other parts of the country in this regard. They face a lot of problems regarding the choice of career and field of studies. The graduates face the lack of job opportunities when they complete their studies. There is a great difference between the jobs available and the universities’ graduation ratio.
Similarly, the problem of quality education is also there that’s why the students of this area can’t compete with the modern world. Although the literacy rate here is 99% but still we are not developed but developing . What is the reason? I think it is a fault of our educational system and our government. They have failed to provide us the standard education; otherwise the people of this region are very talented.
The students of this region are lacking the career counseling and career planning opportunities. This causes failure to get a suitable job and a kind of depression among the youth. Even they face difficulties while studying because the field or the subject they are choosing is not suitable for them and even they are not interested in that field.
Like some of the problems I discussed above there are a lot of problems which are faced by the students and youth now a days like there is lack of net facilities because of which the students are unable to compete with the modern world and get the latest knowledge about different things. There is almost zero concepts of hands-on trainings or internships for the outgoing students of GB. Since they are not exposed to the practical work students are only on cramming the stuff or data provided to them by their teachers in the shape of notes or slides. This is a bitter reality and demolishing situation. If this educational system will not be changed then we will never be able to develop and this trend of cramming is a hazard for the creativity of students. It completely kills the creativity of a student to search and to explore.
Further there is shortage of light or energy crisis which is affecting the studies of students a lot. If we come towards the curriculum it is not appropriate for this area. The curriculum we are studying at here is not suitable and not designed here and for this region .We are studying the curriculum designed for Punjab. An updating of the curriculum is thus, keeping in view the local features, is the need of the time.
We have to think about these all problems and try to make our educational system strengthened. No loop hole should be left unaddressed. Only then our youth will be able to stand with and compete with the rest of the world.
