Published July 6, 2025
Karachi:
After teaching sociology for fourteen years at the high school level in PakistanAt I have found that many of my students are missing in especially three areas; Originality of thought, lack of analytical output in class and indifference to the value of social sciences.
The three problems identified above are not only limited to the private sector in elementary and high school education in Pakistan, but are more acute in the country’s public schools and colleges.
Our students must be inspired by teachers themselves to come up with original ideas and innovative thoughts. While there are discussions about classrooms with them on a number of questions from rising divorce rates in Pakistani society to the qualitative input that can be used in designing a research cost for a school project, I have found that many of them are limited to their thinking and consequently in their efforts done in the particular task. This may be due to, among other things, factors the years of social conditioning from both their families and households and the society they are witnessing.
To counter this, a teacher must know that students in the vital age group of 10-16 must not be retained in their creative and valuable contributions to class discussions.
The administrative hierarchy of educational administrators should also realize this.
At the same time, students must realize that it is important to not only be new to the presentation of an idea to the class, but that it must also be analytically worth the thoughtful reflection.
For that, they have to forget stereotypical images, centered on class, gender, racial and ethnic divisions and preconceived (and untrue) notions of what it means to be a human being in relation to society around us in the modern/postmodern world today.
This is the task that teachers today must be aware of if they want to guide tomorrow’s original mind.
Beautiful minds like Stephen Hawkings, John Nash and Sayyed Hossein Nasr from Today and Leo Tolstoy, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Rabindranath Tagore from yesterday must be taken on board to build a ‘collective conscience’ for tomorrow’s world.
Poets like Hu Shi, Yosano Akiko, Goethe, Wordsworth and Iqbal must be read and re -read if we are to succeed in this huge task in front of us.
Shakespeare must be contextualized in the Pakistani society around us if the country’s students today are to build bridges of understanding and humanity with tomorrow’s world. In this world, knowledge should not have a ‘price tag’ and it should be transferred to the inherent good it entails.
They should be available to understand how curiosity, led in the right direction, leads to a curious mindset that knows no boundaries at all when it comes to reaching the boundaries of information. This longing for knowledge must be nurtured and respected both within and outside the country’s classrooms.
Eventually the need for us to understand the value of social sciences and social sciences for today’s Pakistan.
Social science must be highlighted as very important if the Pakistani state and its future (today’s students) are to take head-on the challenges that affect the nation and the unclear mindset of citizens today.
Social science such as economics, sociology and liberal articles of art as historiography has built nations.
Unfortunately, Pakistani Academy has not yet realized the full potential of an education in social sciences. Our students must be released from the conventional paradigm of a science trade duality and must be done to understand the social science precedence of today’s world.
As AI transforms the education sector today, social sciences offer a huge insider view of the changes that will be made in the education sector both within and outside the classroom. It gives us a window into the view that society will be massively influenced by the new information age, and in order to succeed in this information age, students will have to disconnect themselves from conventional ideas of classroom education.
Social sciences are obliged to offer careers in tomorrow from research, academia and the changing face of the government and public politics. And man will stand by the primary chord of these massive societal cracks. It would be appropriate that Pakistani students recognize the potential of this huge transformation.
Finally, ethics will be a fundamental part of this new field of education. Pakistani parents, teachers and students themselves must get to remember this valuable lesson. This means that education and the process of giving it in Pakistan must also have an ethical angle.
Ethics and morals play an important role in all didactic goals, and this aspect of education can no longer be ignored, especially in AI’s age. If considered, education must be transferred in a value -free way (perfection above cannot be achieved), as all positive philosophy, interactionist experiments and laboratory products must be associated with the ‘ultimate good’, that is, the persecution of education to its inherent value.
Ethics and morals added to humanism will go to great lengths to answer the gripping questions that are bound to emerge in tomorrow’s community. In this discourse, education cannot be limited from ethics and a humanistic pedagogy. For example, taking only a signal about the question of what knowledge is will in the future involve a lot of ethical dilemmas and queries.
A global perspective on education in Pakistan must be given today. If not awarded, historiography will remain writing versions of the actual story, geography will continue to ignore significant monuments of interest in the geologist of the future, and social sciences will miss the things that need to be “taught” in a classroom environment.
The upcoming educational world will ask us fundamental questions about what knowledge is, how should it be pursued and what it means to be a knowledgeable person. AI will transform the education sector and the world out of education to a huge degree. In this sense, our students need to be made aware of tomorrow’s challenges and the innovative and engaging ways of overcoming them.
It’s a age. And knowledge will remain strong in this age.
Taimur Arbab is a teacher in sociology and author based in Karachi
All facts and information is the author’s sole responsibility
