RECENTLY, while I was scrolling down social media platforms, I came across a famous entertainment show on YouTube from a neighbouring country in which a business graduate from Harvard University was invited as a guest who was serving in a non-profit organisation on a meagre salary to teach young students from lower strata of society. This is what I would call true sense of nationalism. Serving one’s country with little regard to one’s own financial interests is something truly remarkable.

At our end, we have more than 22 million out-of-school children, and we can do nothing about them as we are too busy cultivating international lenders and ‘friends’ for our survival. In the words of Henry Peter Brougham, education “makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive, easy to govern, but impossible to enslave”. Our prime emphasis should be on innovative and practical education that imparts skills to the youth as well as contributes to our cash-strapped national economy rather than rote-learning and cramming.

The education model of Finland is an example where education is based on enhancing pragmatism and problem-solving approaches, which is reflective in their socioeconomic indicators. Finland has been ranked as the world’s happiest country for the seven times in a row. It also happens to be a country where the gender gap is one of the lowest in the world. Other countries should follow suit.

Shahroon Ijaz
Lahore

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2024