Our Baby Adults... !!!

When a person is 18, he is allowed by the state to vote and even get married. If there is no mistake in this then technically an eighteen year old should be qualified and able to do these two things, but is it really the case? How many of our youth at this age are in fact intellectually and psychologically mature to do the two?

To get married you need to be earning (or maybe your parents can support you in this thing), but you need to have the maturity to balance between your relationship with your wife, parents, siblings and other relatives, at least. But for some reason perhaps they utterly lag 6-7 years behind in this case. Similarly in order to vote, you need to have the ability to judge the credentials of the candidate and intelligent enough to avoid getting fouled by his flaming speeches...

Are our majority of baby adults qualified and able enough to do the above two? my 3.5 yrs of interaction with them as a teacher at graduate level suggests that most of them are not, that would be almost 98% of them! as those who are qualified, I can count them on figures and recall their names!

My worries are not for those who aren't able to attend college or university, but for those who have the luxury to do so... the educated youth i.e....

I am not insisting here that all 18 years should be getting married... the question and point of concern is what's holding their maturity and intellectual growth as a whole? What's creating the lag?

On the other hand, their energy is at their peak, its like handing over a super computer to a kid, who would use it to play 3D games on it... what a waste!!!

And even a greater concern is, hardly any of them actually realizes the value of the time, energy, & the luxury to take risks they can take now, the tension free mind they have, an intelligent one indeed... perhaps because almost everyone around them is the same, perhaps a mature one among them is an odd man out...

It's the golden age of ones life i.e. starting from 16 till 28... which if utilized productively, has the potential to create a such a strong constructive momentum in ones life, whose benefit would be enjoyed till the end... its like going full throttle on the run way just before taking off...

At a macro level, this segment of the society, in a normative sense, should have been the power house, the most potent driving force of the entire society, exactly because it has the potential to do so!

But alas, what happens, when raw energy is not channelized, it fizzle out, it dissipates, its ruthlessly WASTED!!!!

In the past our own history have examples teenagers leading successful military expeditions, like Badar Bin Mughira was 15 (one of the leaders in the resistance movement during last era of fall of Spain), Muhammad Bin Qasim was 17 when he conquered Sindh... Tariq Bin Ziyad, Shahabuddin Ghori, Sultan Mehmood Fateh, Aurengzeb, Tipu Sultan, are just a few names who were out in the field in their early 20s leading thousands of men into the battle field or acquiring a ruling position in their dynasties... all of these examples indicate that this wasn't uncommon or unusual during those times... The system of Ustad (teacher) based education, informal though, has the capacity to allow the individuals to grow naturally at their own pace, if you have the gifts, you will grow into a giant...

However today all of this sounds like fairy tale.... According to John Taylor Gatto the modern education system has been intentionally design to dumb down the youth... perhaps as a result we see an appalling condition in which our youth is in! wasting all the precious gifts they have in utterly useless activities... their curious minds which should have been asking questions about almost everything going on around, is busy mostly after studies (rattafication & copy pasting), wondering actually HOW TO KILL TIME? spend it on facebook liking, commenting or chatting aimlessly with friends, watch movies, attending concerts, some play sports or go to gym (which is not unhealthy), or at best: sleep!

Does the proposed educational reforms in Pakistan, has a provision to address this problem?

It doesn't really matter if its the same all over the world, are we suppose to copy other's mistake?

Looking cautiously at the mismatch, between 'what should be' and 'what it is', it would not be wrong to say that immaturity of your youth is one of the greatest liability of this country, as otherwise the picture of our society would have been different and its gradual disfiguring wouldn't have been happening!

For proof, just check the impact some of them are making via social media! the majority of them use Facebook, but thanks a to a few sensible ones, they often create enough voice on a specific issue that eventually the mainstream media is on its toes, which makes supreme court of Pakistan to subsequently notice it and issue a suo-motto notice... Shahzaib murder cause is just an example! and there are many more..

It is true that the reaction of social media on various issue needs lots of maturity, its needs to be proactive, take issues till the conclusion etc... but that's not the point here, the point is only to highlight the potential they youth have... Just imagine if all of majority of them gets serious about the issues around them, imagine the jolts they can create against the corrupt status quo... the mature and sensible they are, the mature and long term their impact would be against a particular issue!

And of course it is not just social media, these young adults can participate in a variety of socially constructive activities, I also happens to be a part of a welfare organization called GEAR (www.gear.org.pk) and this organization since the beginning is standing on the feet of university students of age group from 20-25... but out of a few hundreds or thousands in fact, only three or four has got themselves involved in it...

I know a couple of students from same age group, working passionately for the betterment of the education system, one of them have started a small school as well. The other one spends a decent amount of time researching on viable alternatives and I must say he has better knowledge then I have on education systems, how they work and what possible options we have for it. etc...

Shahbaz Sharif, distribution of laptops to the youth, Imran Khan's focus on them, let alone their involvement and contribution in the Pakistan Movement before 1947 is simply a proof of the perceived potential and how valuable their contribution can be for the society; or destructive if they fall in the wrong hands, think suicide bombers and how they turn out to become one... misguided missiles!

Since three years, I have been searching for such individuals, and after interacting with thousands of them I have just found a few... the alarming thing is many of them have the potential to develop and do great things for the society, but they lack the spark, rather they prefer playing around, having fun all the time, but give a damn about what's happening in the society...

How the immense potential of our youth is not getting tapped, how come they are not able to realize it themselves, is it the fault of the education system, or too much pampering by their parents? or the media or perhaps all of these in similar proportions... Ideally all of these formal and informal institutions should have been contributing in the psychological and intellectual development of our youth, however it is near to impossible to expect things to turn around over night.

What can happen is that those among youth who realize this gap, this wastage, this utter display of lack of concern for all of this, may at least try developing themselves by doing two things (a) by adding mature people with strong character, values, and intellectual vigor in their company, (b) start reading books on history of their own people, biographies or autobiographies of famous people in the past, so that they may know where they stand in comparison with great people of present and previous times. Point 'a' seems too difficult as such people are too difficult to find, where as point (b) needs self discipline, which is perhaps even more difficult to find in among our baby adults.

But even before that, our baby adults needs to feel the concern and realize the value of natural but temporary gifts (of time, energy and a tension free mind) they have, which would rather get wasted otherwise...

I am doing my bit to help a few realize about the value of these gifts, please you may do yours...

Success is only from Allah s.w.t

Author is an academic researcher, author, blogger, social entrepreneur, activist, mentor and tweets @javaidomar