So university students today decided to protest and their demand was “Online learning means online exams” . This was in consequence of the announcement by the government that universities will open from the 1st of February and the exams will be conducted on campus.
While their anger is understandable, however we must also understand that more then content – the delivery of the content is perhaps 70 percent of the message. That directly translates in to effectiveness of the message.
It also appears that the current government has not been the most far sighted in most of their decisions.
For instance the recent wave of redaction of Rs. 25,000 prize bond. A year or so ago they started by redacting the Rs.40,000 prize bond in to a Premium prize bond.
I do not have any issue with that. I am all for transparency and anti-corruption etc. However I feel strongly from personal experience that it hurts the middle class specially the working class. This is the category of people that are the largest tax payers in the country. All tax information is available openly on the FBR website and yet a person cannot cash the bond, and if the person decides to get a premium bond ( then it needs to be setup from SBP and not at your own bank) AND if one were to choose the 3rd option of Defense saving certificates – these too imply a wait time where the application is sent to Karachi 🙂
In my humble opinion its embarrassing for a country where local banks have online facilities and SBP and the government are still living in the 1800’s but the projection is as if they have adopted state of the art technology. Not really sure who the “state of the art” solutions aim to assist because for the common man it only adds hurdles.
According to gallup “40% businesses say forced to bribe officials even for legitimate work”
Again, this all comes back to the how we handle technology. We have not adopted online teaching and the potential of the medium. Maybe if we give it time we may see the benefits. BUT we forget that we do have load shedding, lack of IT equipment and a rather too much of an open market 🙂
As soon as online classes and WFH started in March 2020, the market saw an overwhelming increase in the price of laptops and then even a shortage. Maybe its the mindset where we think we are perfect for some reason AND consider the other person imperfect for no reason. Its easy to make up reasons. I heard someone say that if you want to hate someone just keep thinking of the things you dislike about them…even if its just one thing and you will soon start to HATE them. The same is true if we want to love someone.
The whole system is rigged. One way to look at it is if you imagine it to be rigged in your favor. “Your attitude”.
Your attitude makes all the difference. You can be happy or you can be sad. I keep reminding myself either when I am happy or sad that this situation will change. This helps me in not spiraling either way.
Anyhow, we have a long way to go and the great thing is that we are in the right direction. We just need to write a better story.