Destiny of a nation is shaped in its classrooms

December 2, 2017

A very good Chinese proverb states that ‘ If you’re thinking a year ahead, plant a seed. If you’re

thinking a decade ahead, plant a tree. If you’re thinking a century ahead, educate the people.’ If

we today desire to have a better tomorrow for our nation, we need to start working on the building

blocks of this nation and these building blocks are the children of this country. Abraham Lincoln

once rightly said, “ The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of

government in the next generation.”

The early years of human being’s life are the most favourable ones for developing the attitudes

and values that form the basis of their personalities. The structure of values and attitudes built in

early years are strong and permanent roots for one’s entire life. They will always be used as

references for main decisions that challenge men and women. Those first values determine ethical

and moral behaviours throughout life. When a person has to face difficult and complex situations

or when a new challenge demands important decisions, those values that originally carved the

personality will guide options and resolutions, reactions or behaviours. Therefore, if we desire to

have adults in future to respect, care, nurture each other, their mother nation and other nations, the

world and the universe, it is important to sow today a very strong foundation in the children

education programme to reap a beautiful tomorrow.

These initial years are the time to begin helping children to form strong, positive self-images and

grow up to respect and get along with people who are different from themselves. We know from

research that children between 2 years and 5 years of age start becoming aware of gender, race,

ethnicity and disabilities. They also begin to absorb both the positive attitudes and negative biases

and prejudices that are still far too prevalent in our nation. If we do not invest in their

development now our children will necessarily pay a far greater price, both financially and in the

quality of their lives. Education for sustainable development is about helping children to become

active citizens contributing to a sustainable society. This can be done by giving children
opportunities to experience community and nature and to develop their knowledge, values and

concern for each other and nature. Children need to listen to others and the express themselves.

Children should not be expected to solve problems for which adults are responsible, but rather be

given experience and tools to use in decision – making and action taking for a sustainable future.

We must find some effective methods of teaching that can make children understand deeply and

even shock them out of their unawareness. These early stages of human life are so crucial as it is

during this stage the overall personality, nature, the character starts to build up. These values

incorporated and the form it takes in the human mind decides the future of any nation, whether the

nation get a civilized person or a terror-minded personality.

We are aware of plenty of cases when a smart, educated and developed minded person has been

able to ruin the system of a nation in better ways than an uneducated person. Theodore Roosevelt

rightly stated, “ A man who has never been to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a

university education he may steal the whole railroad.” In today’s era of technological

advancement can we stop terrorism or threats similar to these even after providing an adequate

education? Or by providing education we are creating future threats for ourselves? Victor Hugo

said, “ He who opens a school door, closes a prison.” The harsh fact of today is that we do have

thousands of school but yet our prisons are filled and yet there are threats to the nation roaming

freely outside prisons and some in the classrooms today. If only we can find out all the root

causes to these threats and curb them in the correct manner in early childhood by providing a rich

quality of education and morale building in the classrooms today, we can then ensure to have safe

tomorrow for our nation. Jim Rohn once quoted, “If someone is going down the wrong road, he

doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.”

CLASSROOMS DECIDE THE FUTURE OF THE

NATION
History itself witnesses that those nations have made to socioeconomic, political, moral, and
scientific development, all is done from their classrooms. The classrooms shaped the future of our
nation where teaching and learning activities are carried out which decide the fate of our nation. With
the representation of formal education, students get knowledge and grow up as great leaders. In this
way, literacy rates also increase. The benefits of classrooms in deciding the future of a nation are greater
in number. As social awareness, economic progress, scientific and technological progress are based on
classroom learning. Above all, the classroom is a source of enhancing moral, ethical, and cognitive
learning. It also increases personality development. In other words, classrooms decide the fate of a
nation. Some countries are good at importing formal education and some are contrary to that. Pakistan
however, is not that good country at its literacy rate for long. Therefore, there is a need of improving
educational standards in Pakistan to become a great nation. For this, the country needs to revise its
educational policies, eradicate cramming and Orthodox learning. The outdated syllabi need to be
redressed. Moreover, there should be proper teachers’ inductive training which requires reasonable
funds to be allocated in the education and literacy departments across the country. In this connection,
along with the government, media has to play its pivotal role. Since media is regarded as a mirror of a
nation it can keep aware the nation regarding formal education for the future of the nation of pure
people.

Classroom is a place of teaching and learning. It is one of the oldest institutional activities where
teachers teach and their students learn. There are many methodologies of learning, among those, some
are formal and some are informal. It depends upon what kind of learning is to be carried out. In
Pakistan, the learning process has some variations such as vocational, technical, and academic learning.
Even though there are many loopholes in the education of Pakistan, yet it works for the development of
the nation.

 It is a fact that the classrooms decide the fate of the nations. The nations that believe in getting
the proper education to become good at all indicators of socioeconomic, political, and scientific
developments. Such as Finland is the world’s most literate nation, according to new research, next to
that the UK, the US, Canada, and Australia occupy an indispensable position in educational areas,
whereas, Pakistan is lagging far behind from these countries in literacy rate of education. Thus, in every
country classroom decides its development and prosperity for society.

There is a way through classroom decides the future of the nation. It represents the formal
education in the classrooms where students learn their lessons according to their level and classes.
During the era of Socrates, there used to be a classical learning method, where his pupil used to learn
about truth, the truth that was an enigma for the society. He used to teach about how to pursue the
bitter truth of life, nature, and God. Similarly, this trend proceeded for a long. However, today the
nations are well developed because they know how to grow up and how to stand out in education for
the sake of development. It has rightly been said that never stop learning because life never stops
teaching.

That is why students get knowledge in the classrooms. From primary to higher levels of
education, the learning process is taken place in classrooms. Those who believe in learning and keep the
wheel of their learning process moving on, they not only become prosperous but also produce
auspicious outcomes for society. That is why it is rightly said that knowledge is power. Nelson Mandela
beautifully cited it, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.
Hence, it is highly needed to get education for the development of nations.

Moreover, classrooms make great leaders. Peeping in history, it would be known that most of
the revolutionary personalities became great leaders of their time due to getting an education. In
American colonization, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Locke, were the leaders who
enlightened the deprived people and became heroes and founding fathers of America. Similarly, Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan educated the Muslims of the sub-Continent through scientific society and the Aligarh
movement. The founder of Pakistan, Quai-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah was a great advocate who
fought the case of Pakistan and Allama Iqbal was a great philosopher Ph.D. scholar, and ah dreamer who
made it possible to create a separate homeland Pakistan. Indeed, behind every success story of the
great leaders, there used to be a pivotal role of classrooms which made the future of the nations.

Furthermore, classroom learning increases the literacy rate of a nation. The more the literacy
rate is, the more progressive development will be of a nation. Most of the developed countries are good
at literacy rates because they have worked on their educational institutions. They have created great
people in their society. That is why; they are good at every walk of life. Japanese, which were devastated
in World War II, protected their libraries and teachers. Even though their socio, economic, and political
indicators were not up to the mark since then, they grew as a great nation due to their literacy rate. The
same is the case with other countries such as United Kingdom (UK), China, Malaysia, and Russia; they
are good at education. All of these countries realized the benefits of education and today they are
Giants in most of the fields.

 As there are many benefits of classrooms in deciding the future of the nation. One of them is
social awareness that depends upon classroom education. An individual is a unit of society, if the
individual is well educated, well versed, and good at manners, then the society would definitely be a
good one. According to Forbes Magazine, those societies that are well civilized, well educated and most
of those belong to the Western nations. Three of them are Western European countries i.e.UK,
Germany, and the Netherlands which are top on the list across the world. It would not be wrong to say
that countries which are purely dependent upon educational activities are well aware and great
societies.

As a result, every country relies on formal education for economic progress. The more the
literacy rate increases, the more it will be developed. As per International Monetary World Economic
Outlook, in 2019, top ten countries in nominal terms are the United States, China, Japan, Germany,
India, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Brazil, and Canada. In PPP terms top ten nations are China, the
United States, India, Japan, Germany, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and France. In the
top 10, eight countries are common in both methods. Others two nations Italy and Canada are in the top
10 on nominal bases, while Russia and Indonesia is in the top 10 on PPP bases. It is all because their
literacy rate differs. So getting at the top in economic progress and development, education plays a
crucial role.

Classrooms are also hubs of scientific and technological development. Scientists, inventors, and
researchers are always educated. No matter they get formal or informal education, they get enough
knowledge which makes them whatever they try to attain their desires, goals, and dreams to be fulfilled.
It is because education makes things easier to do. In the words of Albert Einstein, “if you cannot explain
it simply, you do not understand it well enough”. Similarly, it is well shared that we are robots and our
smartphones are remote controls. In today’s era, technology has progressed that it has created things at
fingertips. The mobile phone has the capability to control the whole network of a satellite. In the given
fact, scientific and technological developments are the need of the hour which can only be achieved by
classroom education.

In addition to that classrooms also form the moral values which are beneficial for the nation. A
nation cannot progress until and unless it is good at moral and ethical values. These are only possible
through education. Where morality is sustained and their social evils would be very few in number. So
the corruption, injustice, prejudice, extremism, and barbarism are due to a lack of proper counseling and
classroom education, that's why the countries which are confronting these problems are supposed to
improve their moral values. Things will get better with the time span and this will create the future of
the nation.

 These all things can be achieved by cognitive thinking in the classroom for individual grooming.
Mental ability, the balance of mind and heart, and thinking in the right direction; all play a crucial part in
personality development and grooming. Such cognitive thinking can be triggered in classrooms. Only
then a reasonable betterment can be turned in grooming the personality of every individual. That will
ultimately be a positive part of the future development of the nations.

 However, considering Pakistan’s standard, it is the need of the hour to get the country on right
track. There is a road map for the country to impart formal education in the classrooms for the sake of
future generations. Hence, the educational policies need to be revised. Without a proper policy, no
country can achieve its set targets. Therefore, policies should be made in a way that can make a
difference. Pakistan has a history of developing detailed and well-designed 9 educational policies from
1947 to 2020 but has fallen short of implementation all of the time. On the other hand, many political
parties highlighted their education manifestos but at the same, they could not be properly
implemented. Hence, making policies, therefore, has never been a plight of the succeeding
governments; it is the lack of implementations that keep the wheel of problems moving on due to lack
of implementing these.

 Nonetheless, it has been a gloomy picture that the education system in classrooms is seen as
crammed and orthodox oriented in nature and application. In the 21 st century, these kinds of
educational methodology cannot work altogether considering the Covid-19 pandemic scenario. Today,
countries have changed the pattern of the educational system. Virtual education, open education, and
online education are the same kinds that are contemporary. However, the classroom formal education
also can play a pivotal role but it should eradicate cramming knowledge and should go further for
creativity. In this way, Pakistan can get its educational level on international standard and can be able to
compete with the developed countries by getting rid of orthodox trends in learning processes.

Furthermore, the land of your people needs to update outdated syllabi. A country cannot get
contemporary trends in education until and unless it knows about the current standards of education.
Dr. Syed Muhammed Junaid Zaidi, founder Rector of the COMSATS Institute of Information Technology
Islamabad, has said that today outdated syllabuses are being taught in educational institutions of the
country and 99 percentages of the books of syllabuses are authored by academia of other countries.
There are no or fewer writers in our country who can write syllabus books for their own children with
the latest knowledge and information of information technology. In the given fact, Pakistan has to
acknowledge its loopholes and should update the outdated syllabi.

 Besides, teachers’ inductive training on modern methodologies should be according to the

international level. In classrooms, if teachers are not well trained, they cannot teach the children well.
Therefore, from primary to higher education, Pakistan has to train all educationists. Only then, its
nation’s future is bright otherwise it is in dark. For getting the idea of modern trends, foreign experts of
the best Institute should be hired so that they can train the teachers. Every year, there should be
educational conferences and festivals for the improvement of education. As a matter of fact, once the
teachers get trained, then the fate of our nation will change from the classrooms for sure.

 In order to do better changes in Education Departments in Pakistan, a reasonable incorporation

open should be allocated, because every progress and development starts from proper classrooms of
the institutions. According to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation
(UNESCO), Pakistan has not been able to allocate at least 4% of GDP since 1971. Adding fuel to the fire,
Pakistan even could not fulfill the educational goals of Millennium Sustainable Development.
Considering all these factors, Pakistan needs to incorporate at least 4% of its GDP so that the literacy
rate can be increased.

 Last but not least, media can play a progressive role in the education sector by educating the
masses by booming up their level of intellect. Today, according to a report published in daily the Dawn
more than 87 million people have access to the Internet, electronic, and print media as a whole. So,
mass media should play its crucial role in educating the masses for seeking a proper education. Hence,
mass media has the capability to propagate things even in positive nature. That is the need of the hour;
it should start a campaign in which youth can be compelled to go for classroom education for the sake of
the national future.

 In a nutshell, undoubtedly classrooms decide the future of a nation. Most of the developed
nations are only developed because they believed in the application of classroom education. Today they
are well developed and their future of the nation is brighter. Similarly, Pakistan needs to take
appropriate decisions to shape the future of its nation where teaching and learning can be done on
modern methodologies which will decide the fate of the nation. Socioeconomic, political, scientific,
moral, and technological developments are only possible when educational progress goes through
proper classrooms. However, Pakistan lacks a lot in educational matters, it has focused on education not
well that is why its literacy rate is not up to the mark but with proper policies, updating outdated syllabi,
inductive training, considering Covid-19 to impart education by virtual world and with the
implementation of policies, it can make reasonable progress. For this, not only the government but also
every individual should come forward and play one’s role in the betterment of education and the future
of the nation.
How does a classroom decide the future of the nation?
Ad by Turing

Classrooms are the first learning space outside the home. It is the foundation for
educational achievements. It is the classroom which are factories of potential engineers,
lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, architects who shape physical infrastructure & quality of life
in nation . "The destiny of India is being shaped in her classroom " has been pointed out by
the Education Commission (1964-65) and to that it may safely be added that the destiny of
these classroom is being shaped in the institution of education with committed teachers.
Prof.Hamayunkabir rightly stated" without good teachers,even the defects of the system can
be largely overcome" So the teacher is of paramount importance in any system of
education. Teachers have crucial role to play preparing young people not only to face the
future with confidence but also to build it with purpose & responsibility. Enlightened,
emancipated & empowered teachers lead communities & nations in their March towards
better & higher quality of life. They are responsible for acculturating the role of education.

Dr.Abdul Kalam once narrated an incident from his life, during his 5th standard schooling
his teacher explaining about aeroplanes. Kalam sir told the teacher he couldn't understand
the flying mechanism of aeroplane ,as many students were also in the same knowledge of
Kalam sir. So his teacher took the entire class to the beach & the teacher shows the birds to
the students & explained the flying mechanism. That day a spark created in the heart of
Kalam Sir. It encourages him to achieve his destiny as a pilot & finally he achieved it. If we
look into the root cause for his dream ,destiny & achievement has been created & shaped in
his classroom. Like the above incident, many successful people agree with the fact their
destiny shaped in their classroom. So, from this, we can get to know that destiny of a nation
is shaped in its classroom.