Dr. Jernail Singh Anand

How sons and daughters should be brought up, parents are very touchy in this matter. They use all their powers, even if they have to go for loans, to offer them a world of surety and security. They cannot be faulted in their passion to make all the provisions for the happy stay of their offspring. But some obvious facts that we have to contend with are that the over-protected and pampered sons and daughters of the rich are worst examples of humanity. They have power and wealth which they squander and make life difficult for people who want to live life with dignity.

If a father is a great painter, can he make his son too a painter, and at that, great too like him? A business man can bequeath his organization to his son, but has he made the son equal to the task he is going to inherit? We see great organizations and establishments which disappeared when they passed into the hands of crafty or craft-less offspring. We have this equation before us: Wealthy parents have sons and daughters who squander wealth, and prove good for nothing and the establishment crumbles as soon as the father is gone. We also have another equation. When the parents are financially weak, and suffer indignities in society because of their poverty, the sons and daughters work hard, and rise to high positions. These are far better specimens of humanity, who have seen poverty and who have struggled hard to gain position in society.

Creating Artificial Scarcity

I feel every father who has wealth should not lavish it on his son or daughter. He must create an artificial scarcity for them. Let them feel the pinch, and work hard. There is nothing bad in it if he sends his son to work and earn his livelihood, so that he knows the value of being useful to society, and learns the art of living with others. This is a world society which we all inherit, and we must know how to share this commonwealth of joy and pain, which are shared for us all. We cannot create young men and women who know everything of plenty, and have no knowledge of penury.

When I see fathers doting on their sons, and mothers killing their daughters, I feel how sinful we are. We are not ourselves, we are a part of human society, where we are expected to add to its well-being. If we are centered on our self, or our family, it is a foolish exercise. And it is being practised on an astronomical scale. Parents are worried only about their sons, and little less for their daughters, provide them every joy, every amenity. So far so good. But what is the result of this doting? Particularly, for the society in which we are living? We are giving to society men and women with twisted sensibilities, men who could not grow to their potential, people who were made to choose to be parasites.

If a man has to work hard in life, face many struggles, and suffer so many wants and losses, he becomes humble and wise too. But, when he stops all these forces of correction from his son, and gives him a protective atmosphere, it means that son will never rise to those heights to which his father had risen. When we stop our sons and daughters from facing rough weather, [to an extent, it can be excused] but in order to make them men and women in the real sense, so that they could develop their own capabilities to the maximum, they need to be in the ocean as an independent entity.

Protection destroys their potential. You can just cast a look around and see, how my kids who are under protection, they have to be helped in getting jobs, in staying in jobs, and cannot take independent decisions. It is parasitism of the worst kind. Parents must realize their duty towards their sons and daughters. It is poverty of wisdom and foresight if we end up scuttling their progress and growth as human beings, which is a cumulative loss to human society.

Read: Fight to Endure, Gift to Others

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Hailing from Chandigarh, India, The author is Laureate of Seneca Award, Charter of Morava, Franz Kafka and Maxim Gorky Awards, and President, International Academy of Ethics

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Chandigarh

Concerned with the falling ethical standards, and looking into its roots, there is a general feeling that this fall in morals is the result of breaking up families in which infants are treated like orphans.

Dr. Jernail Singh Anand, President, and Dr. Maja Herman Sekulic, Vice President of the International Academy of Ethics, said in a statement on August 26, 2024 that ‘We must recognize that a child has a Right to his Father and his Mother and these are inviolable and inalienable rights.’

According to Dr. Jernail Singh Anand, President of IAE, in their passion for self-realization and careerism, parents think their egos more important than the growing up infants. Break up may give hope to a partner, but it is a disaster for an infant child. The IAE adopted a resolution for the Infant Rights so that parents should not be allowed to separate before they attain five years of age. This cooling period can also help in a U turn for the family.

IAE RESOLUTION ON INFANT RIGHRS

Every infant, the moment he or she is fermented, acquires natural rights, to be born, and then brought up by its parents. The UNESCO has been approached to recognize the Right of an Infant to be brought up by both the parents and not abandoned by any of them for their onward settlements.

Read: Why do we need to specifically address the Rights of Infants when we already have the Children’s Rights Declaration?

Orphanage is no destination for an infant. Parents should not be allowed to be separated before a child acquires the age of at least 5 years. Men and women in uneasy alliances sometimes suffer traumatic times and go for separation dividing the kids. The International Academy of Ethics believes that the society needs future citizens with a unified mental constitution, not broken psyches from broken families.  We must recognize that a child has a Right to his Father and his Mother and these are inviolable and inalienable rights. Courts while separating the warring couples must make sure that in view of the Infant Rights to Father and Mother, no child is rendered fatherless or motherless under any circumstances.

If given time in such cases, it is possible parents might reconsider their decision to separate and young kids may have a chance to grow up under the umbrella of both the parents. Family is a sacred unit for creation. It should not be violated. (PR)

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If we don’t take responsibility for our child to educate them anyone else will start to educate which will not only harmful for our children but whole society can suffer.

Hanefan Shaikh

Do we ever think why technology is getting stickier with our daily life? In the past, people grew up using a pen as naturally as their children and grandchildren growing up using a smartphone and tablets in today’s world. If you have taken some initial responsibility yourself you can feel confident that your child will act responsibly with their new “toy”. Many people still are more conscious about their child to make choices while navigating the new digital age because they want to draw a balance between manual and technological world. Furthermore, they are finding the way how it can be possible to healthy use of technology.

Usually, I feel embraced after seeing many adults who are taking their child for grant consciously or unconsciously. Let’s discuss some points and fact and figures which might be helpful for the adults who are anxious about their child. First we have some questions which shouldn’t be neglected by parents.

Almost all parents become worried about their child when they get fever even after they feel just flue. At the same time, abundance of thoughts yet strangely comes in mind when they are putting new technology toy into their kid’s hand. In this digital age, do we think about our children’s mental health? Who will decide what technology is better than another? What is main purpose of the technology uses? Don’t we are making a big market of chain smoker aha! I mean “chain hacker” to our children? How they can survive in future challengeable world if they don’t find out the difference between good and bad uses of technology?

Yes! I’m talking about all kinds of gadgets it can be your smart phones, tablets, laptops which we are put in the hand of our child without any consideration? As we can get free from children unintentionally or intentionally and do anything which is being beneficial or not for our life like: watching movies, cooking, might be studying or doing any other routine work. According to UNICEF the first 1000 days have a lasting effect on a child’s future. How many parents take care all about for this specific age of child?  Don’t we have chance to get it right from now? According the same studies with every hug and every kiss, with every nutritious meal and game parents play, they’re helping to build their baby’s brain. Again the question is how many parents do the act like UNICEF suggested. On the other hand, I want to share the research of uSwitch.com in 2021 where studies show that the average user wakes up their screen nearly 100 times a day. If the same touches we have done for our kids and look after our parents how wouldn’t it be a fruitful?

The parents are first responsible for the career of their children. In this pace of life, children’s whole life depend on education of their very first stage of life when they are growing like a flower we should give them all right conditions as they can grow efficiently from the beginning of a root structure. For example: Seeds generally required water and warmth. Some seeds also required light and others must go through fire or even the digestive tract of an animal to begin their germination. Same as our kids want efficient conditions to grow appropriately in the beginning. Most of the guardians pretended technology as a water in this pace of life. They think if our children don’t have gadgets it wouldn’t be survive. Might be technology play a role to warm up to your kids which is also necessary for growing? Nevertheless, it is addicting your child slowly and gradually – Addiction of watching cartoons, playing video games etc. all the time. There are thousands of examples around us to absorb the situations in general get together, parks, shopping malls, public transports where we can easily see how gadgets are destroying brains of our kids. As I mention earlier, many parents give mobile or tablets to their children for sack of playing games, and getting free for doing other home chores etc. At same time, we don’t have Idea how they are getting chain smoker or chain watcher of cartoons and video games and getting familiar with vulgar content. As a great Persian poet Jalal ud-Din Mohammad Rumi said excess use of anything is poison. So overuse of mobile phone or tablet is poison for the both physical and mental health of children. In a national survey conducted by the Erikson Institute, they found technology used by children under age of six almost globally. This study said parents use technology along with their kids on a daily basis for up to two hours. Moreover, research includes 1,000 parents around the country. According to this study 85% of parents allow in this age group children to use technology. It means peoples Smartphones, tablets, television, computer and laptops were most popular.

It is alarming for the future of children because they aren’t thinking about another perspective of the technology uses. Parents should be careful from all the aspects of its usage because they are most influential role model for the children so it is important for parents to be mindful of their own technology habits during a child’s formative years.  Parents have many important roles in helping children use technology in healthy ways. Learning how to manage, mentor and monitor around technology use for children begin with paying attention to how adults use technology in the home. Second relationship matter most in a child’s early years. Make sure to build friendly relationship with your children.

All the guardians should keep balance between technology use and other activities for child. Healthy technology use is about balance. Use technology to support the joy of learning to engage, empower, and inspire your child. Manage your own technology use thoughtfully. Young children learn habits by watching the adults around them, so model healthy technology habits. Manage the impact on family time. Children also need family time without screens and digital devices. Plan to unplug. Ask, “What can we do together when we turn our devices of?” Encourage playtime, including outdoor time, when no technology is required. If we don’t take responsibility for our child to educate them anyone else will start to educate which will not only harmful for our children but whole society can suffer.

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Hanefan Shaikh is Lecturer at Faculty of Management Sciences, ILMA University Karachi Sindh

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By Nazarul Islam

America’s government has for the past eighteen months, looked at me and all the other parents in my situation, as if to say: “Good luck with all that.” Employers have looked at parents of small children and determined that they need to micromanage themselves—those grown-up, adult parents’, who need to keep their children safe.

Public schools are still dithering about whether they will require vaccinations and mask use this fall (My son likes to send his son to a private school that will require both, because that’s just the only thing that makes sense), but it’s unlikely that any school will require proof that parents are vaccinated before they send their unable-to-be-vaccinated ‘Dennis’ to spread the gospel of Covid-19 around elementary school.

This fall, just like last fall, the burden of the coronavirus will fall disproportionately on parents. It’s parents who will have to treat every sniffle or cough as a potential life-threatening disease; it’s parents who will be guessing at the efficacy of expensive “home” “rapid” Covid-19 tests; and it’s parents who will be trying to juggle “everything is back to normal” work schedules around periodic weeklong school quarantines because some other family just had to drag their kid to church, or Florida, or a church in Florida.

Children are thorny little disease vectors, who cause parents to lose sleep many, many nights. In the best of times, the apprehensions are that once they go back to school, you can count on their bringing home a little Delta variant, to their vaccinated but not invincible parents. Some of those parents will be forced to go to work; some of those parents will not wear a mask while out and obviously, we’ll get another entirely predictable wave of Covid cases. And our cycle of high class, stupidity will continue.

In a society that has cared about children, everybody would be masking up at least until the vaccine were available to all children. Safe, in-person childhood education is arguably the most important social institution that needs to “get back to normal.” It can’t be done effectively remotely (or at least it wasn’t).

Educating our children through this crisis should be our No. 2 priority, behind only keeping people from dying from a preventable disease. Making it safe for kids to go to school is more important than going to church, a temple or synagogue, the mosque or a ballgame, or dinner and a movie.

But to get there, we need people to care about other people. And perhaps, that’s where this country always fails.

Last weekend, my best friend and his family were supposed to go on vacation. But their kid (who is the same age as my youngest) was exposed to Covid-19 at camp, a day and a half before their flight. The kid didn’t get the virus (according to the rapid test), but still, the exposure was there. According to all the weak, politically compromised guidelines, they were still allowed to travel, but they canceled their trip.

Even though they were vaccinated, they knew that their kid, and thus the whole family, was at an increased risk of spreading Covid-19 if they traveled one measly day after a case was confirmed in their community. So, they didn’t. They did their little part to keep from spreading this awful illness to people they don’t even know. My friends, the born liberals to be sure, weren’t willing to go out there and risk giving some unvaccinated (MAGA) child Covid-19 just so they could have a trip.

Thing is, I don’t think my friend is special. Indeed, most parents I know would have done the same thing. It’s the people who won’t who are quite literally ruining it for everybody else. The thing that is keeping the disease going is not the Delta variant of Covid-19; it’s the ass…. variant of humanity. And there’s no vaccine for that.

Nazarul Islam

The Bengal-born writer Nazarul Islam is a senior educationist based in USA. He writes for Sindh Courier and the newspapers of Bangladesh, India and America. He is author of a recently published book ‘Chasing Hope’ – a compilation of his 119 articles.

The post Defining our own class of variants… first appeared on Sindh Courier.

A series of articles on education in the form of a multi-installment letter to the parents  

By Anjum Altaf

Dear Parent,

In my previous letter, I made one central point — that, just as for any other product you purchase, you pay money to buy education for your child. And just as you are careful in buying other products, you should be careful to make sure that the education you buy is the best for the money you spend. You should be concerned about the QUALITY of the product.

We live in a market economy and just as there is adulterated milk, adulterated medicines, and low-quality merchandise, there is a lot of variation in the quality of education available. But it is much harder to judge the quality of education compared to that of milk. Unfortunately, there is no agency that protects you or watches out for your interest. You are on your own and the future of your child depends on the care you exercise in choosing his education and demanding improvement in it.

I had also mentioned that in this letter I would start identifying the issues that deserve your attention. We first need to narrow the focus of our concern. There are various levels of education — school, college, university. Which level requires the most attention on the part of parents? I would argue that it is school education which is the foundation on which the others rest — just like the floors of a building. If the foundation is weak, the building will remain fragile no matter how much money is spent to beautify the upper floors.

Within school education, it is the primary grades (1 to 5) that serve as the foundation for school education. These are the make or break years. If your child’s primary school education is weak, it is most unlikely that he or she would be able to make up for the deficiency no matter how much money you spend on him or her later.

Keep in mind these words of wisdom from Sheikh Saadi written almost 900 years ago:

خشتِ او٘ل چون نهد معمارکج

تا ثری٘ا می رود دیوار کج

When the first brick is laid crooked by the architect

The wall will remain crooked even if raised to the stars

So let us focus on the first brick, primary school education, and try to determine how good or bad it is in the majority of schools in Pakistan. Let me approach this with a comparison that is never really made but is very telling. Before a child ever gets to school, he or she spends about five years at home. In this time, most parents are able to teach their children to understand, express themselves, and communicate with others in their home language. The child can talk about events in the past, present, and future; can formulate questions and ask riddles; and can do many creative things like make up poems or tell stories.

Even illiterate and the poorest of parents can accomplish this task which is a huge achievement and an example of good education. I make this point because when, after five years at home, your child goes to fee-charging schools with trained teachers, the schools fail to teach a new language to your child half as well as you did. In fact, even after ten years of school education the child cannot acquire the competence in new languages that parents managed to instill for the first language in half that time.

If you doubt this statement, try asking a typical school graduate to narrate a story in any of the languages he or she is supposed to have learnt at school. Just this simple experiment should alert you that there is something grievously wrong with school education in Pakistan. And, if schools are failing so badly in teaching languages, why do you think they would be doing a fantastically good job in teaching mathematics and science?

This is not a loose allegation on my part. Organizations like ASER (Annual Survey of Education Report) survey school education every year and report consistently on what they call the ‘learning gap’. A very high proportion of students in grade 5 have only acquired the education that they should have mastered in grade 2. Think about this — parents are paying for five years of school and getting only two years’ worth of education. Would you pay rent on a house for five years and be allowed to live in it for only two? Does it surprise you that so many of these poorly taught high school graduates cannot find jobs?

And if schools cannot teach languages, mathematics, or science, what are they good for? If all they can teach is Seerat, Ahadith, and the Quran — which are all of great value in life but do not comprise a complete education — wouldn’t parents be better off sending their children to a subject specialist in the mosque where they can get this education for free? That is probably how many of you got your religious education and you are not lesser Muslims because of that.

This incredible failure of school education raises a number of critical questions:

What kind of future does a country have where the learning gap is so huge for half its children while another half is out of school altogether?

The Pakistani state has known about out-of-school children and the learning gap for many, many years and done nothing about them except to put an empty promise in the Constitution acknowledging its responsibility to provide compulsory and free education to all children of school-going age. Why has the state done nothing about these deficiencies and broken its own promises jeopardizing the future of the country and impoverishing the lives of its citizens?

Why have parents shown so little concern about the quality of education received by their children and not impressed upon the representatives of the state their unhappiness with the prevailing situation?

In my next letter I will begin to provide some answers to these questions and engage parents in what should be a joint effort to make living in this country a more rewarding experience for their children.

Sincerely,

Dr. Anjum Altaf

Former Dean, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)

Click here to read Letter 1

The post Your Child Deserves Better – A Letter to Parents – II first appeared on Sindh Courier.

A series of articles on education in the form of a multi-installment letter to the parents   

By Anjum Altaf

Dear Parent,

I am writing directly to you because you care about your child more than anyone else. You, more than anyone else, want your child to be successful in life which is why you invest a lot of your hard-earned income in his or her education, not just in school but in private tuition as well.

You invest this money in your child’s education because you believe that for the majority of people a good education provides the best chance for success and upward mobility, for your child to have a better life than you have had. If you did not believe this you would have apprenticed your child to a tailor or a mechanic to learn a trade which would not only guarantee a steady income for life but also add to the households’ income during training. Real money would be coming into the house instead of going out in the hope of future gain.

But for this to happen, the education that your child gets in school must be a GOOD education. A poor education is not of much use. You can see this by observing what can happen to many individuals with ten to twelve years of education who are having a very difficult time finding jobs. Today, a job for a peon in an office receives thousands of applications from individuals with more than ten years of education.

A poor education is not just a waste of your hard-earned income, it is also a shattering of all the dreams you have for your child. In addition, it is source of immense frustration for the young adult who feels that he or she deserves better for the time and effort that he or she has put into going to school instead of learning a trade.

It is therefore important for you to know what is a GOOD education and to discriminate between GOOD and BAD education. Just as you know that you can get fresh or rotten meat from the butcher and have learnt to distinguish between them for the sake of your health, you have to realize that it is not enough to send your child to school without knowing whether the school is providing a good or a bad education. You have to do this for the sake of your child’s mental health and for the sake of his or her future. Both you and your child deserve to get value for the time and money you are investing.

Many of you reading this letter in English are probably sending your child to the leading private school in your city and might feel that the general quality of education in the country does not concern you or your child. This could be a deceptive perception. First, even the education in leading private schools charging tens of thousands of Rupees in monthly fees may not be at par with global standards. As an example, consider the fact that Pakistan participated in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), a globally recognized ranking of educational achievement of fourth and eighth grade students, for the first time in 2019. Out of the 64 countries participating, Pakistan was ranked second from last.

Second, even if your child is amongst the fortunate few getting a good education, his or her future is affected if the majority of the children in the country are getting a poor education. A poorly educated citizenry leads to frustration, unrest, and instability in the country which affects the welfare of everyone. Such unsettled conditions have led to foreign companies and financial institutions leaving the country, foreign airlines ceasing to operate, and international NGOS reducing their involvement. All of these have reduced job opportunities for the well-educated in addition to making their lives insecure. This is the reason why parents of even the best educated children want them to go and settle abroad instead of struggling in Pakistan.

Pakistan has become a unique country in which the not just the poorest of its young generation but also its most affluent wish to leave for places that offer a better and more secure future. This is big warning sign that suggests that the future of Pakistan may not get better — a place that people wish to leave can only deteriorate. Its governance is left in the hands of mediocre, poorly educated persons who cannot make good and sensible decisions in the general interest nor conceive of policies that would generate enough jobs for all those who are graduating from schools and colleges especially from rural areas and secondary cities.

For all these reasons, it is vital for the future of the country for everyone, whether they have children in school or not, whether their children go the best schools or not, to pay attention to the general state of education in Pakistan today.

In the next installment of this letter I will begin to lay out the issues that need your attention and consideration.

Sincerely,

Dr. Anjum Altaf

Former Dean, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)

The post Your Child Deserves Better – A Letter to Parents – I first appeared on Sindh Courier.