In our part of the world, there is a national focus on fostering STEM among boys and girls leaving out literature and social science behind. Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif would promise to turn a dedicated chief minister’s complex into an information technology university.
State-of-the-art Arfa Kareem Tower stands tall inspiring people to study computer sciences. The Higher Education Commission announces hundreds of foreign study scholarships for STEM graduates.
The market has lucrative and an abundant supply of jobs for STEM scholars.
Punjab University’s BS programmes of STEM disciplines see neck to neck fight as everyone wants to get admission to STEM departments and those with around 90 percent of marks can secure a berth there. Those who cannot make to STEM disciplines, and still want to have a higher education degree, turn to social sciences departments.
In these circumstances, who would turn to literature and how do Lahore schools cope with this problem?
The consequences of ignoring literature and social sciences are upon us. Once can see frustration and intolerance among the youth. Literature promotes harmony, love, co-existence and empathy, whereas STEM programmes are least bothered about even workplace ethics.
Dr Huam Baqai vouches for the fact.
An associate professor with the Institute of Business Administration, Dr Baqai says that they contacted several employers to know about the productivity of their graduates.
Their response was shocking.
Many of the employers said the graduates had good content knowledge but that was not enough. The workplace can teach a raw beginner all the content and skills required for the job in a few months. The graduates of the IBA, however, lacked workplace co-existence. The feedback pushed the programme managers to increase the number of humanities subjects from three to seven and 10.
Schools should have some subjects taught for learning and intellectual grooming purpose only, not for grades. Evaluation of subjects like literature (humanities and social sciences) should be redesigned as STEM graduates get 100 out of 100 which is not done in literature subjects for right or wrong reasons.
One or two semesters at a university programme may not be enough to inculcate the love of reading in university students.
The role of the family in inculcating the love of reading in children.
A strict reading regime should be developed at home. Parents should become a role model for their children. They should take them very often to libraries and bookshops. Do not criticise the technology, it’s a new fast rapid way to gain knowledge but the excessive use of technology is harmful.
Another solution can be the marriage of science and literature. Our generation is aware of and interested in zombies. It is because the media generates their interest in it. So why cannot we make films on themes of science and literature? Literature is important for scientists because you need to know how to write as you need to do a lot of writing in your career.
It is time for creative minds to make topics of science and literature attractive to the young generation. It will be a constructive contribution of media to society building. New research has shown that media has not only gained independence but all other organs of society are getting heavily dependent on media. It is against this background that media, not least digital media, should play its role to educate cyber kids on science and literature.
Sameen Shah, a PhD scholar, is studying the new trends keenly.
She says she believes in this age of science where our children are surrounded by gadgets, social media and microblogging trends, a 'human' experience rich with emotions, empathy, values, and compassion has become both rare and difficult to understand. Teaching literature to our children can probably soften the hard and rough edges of their personalities, helping them develop a better understanding of that 'human' experience.
“With the wonderful amalgam of emotions, imagination, and surreal narrations, literature can help us look beyond our limited understanding of life experiences. It takes away the selfish streak that we are all painted with and begs us to go beyond our selves and develop emotional connections with other [fictional] beings. Every corner of the world that has seen wars, conflicts, cruelty or a sudden surge of materialism has observed a resulting apathy. They have always found a way to compensate that using literature, arts, and poetry. It helps keep the human element alive and reconnects people using collective experiences. Children, of all, can benefit greatly by studying literature as it helps them develop a deeper understanding of the world and how multiple perspectives can be employed to study the same phenomenon,” she says.
She is right but this ugly job market is devouring literature fast.
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