Getting closer to your Mega Project Problem
Our education system hurts me a lot in many aspects and I always want to do something for its betterment. I firmly believe that if our education system comes on track, 90% of our country’s problems will be resolved. There are many flaws in our education system and lack of working on emotional intelligence is one of them. Therefore, I choose to work on it as my mega project. Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to understand and manage emotions positively. According to latest research EI is more important than intelligence for successful life. Unfortunately, our schools totally neglect this aspect of personality development and only focuses on academics.
Problem Statement: Our schools are not working on emotional intelligence of the students resulting in lack of self-awareness, empathy, confidence, social skills, and relationship management.
For getting closer to and learning more about my mega project problem, I first did internet search on it. I also read various articles on emotional intelligence, it’s importance and consequences. I also talked to some mothers about the same problem and they are also of the same opinion that schools are totally neglecting that aspect of personality development and their whole focus is on academics. One of the mothers told me that her son is studying in a well-known school of Karachi but despite that he lacks confidence. She further apprised that her son is now in class three but his confidence is at the same level when he started the school. School management even is well aware about the confidence issue of the child but they don’t even bother about it. In discussion with another mother, whose daughter is in kindergarten and has severe sharing issue (she doesn’t share her toys and other things even with her siblings), I asked whether she use to share toys while playing in school? Her mother replied with the sarcastic smile that they don’t play in school, there are no such extra-curricular activities in their school and the whole day they only do studies. Unfortunately, aforementioned school is one of those schools of Karachi, that many parents wish for securing their children’s admission in it. Another mother told me that her daughter has stress issues but there is no such thing in school to educate the students about dealing with it. That mother further said that our schools are in a race of academics, running like a blind horse towards it and totally failed in implementing working on behavior of students.
From the process of getting closer to my mega project problem, I came to realized that this problem is much more serious issue than what I was thinking before. Lack of emotional intelligence is also the root of many mental health and social issues. People with low emotional intelligence are more stressed, vulnerable to depression, nervous, develop conflicts, poor in decision making, selfish, furious, unfriendly and bad in relationships. While people with high emotional intelligence have qualities like self-awareness, confidence, empathy, leadership, relationship management which are necessary for the success in professional as well as personal life. So, it’s very important that our schools must work on emotional intelligence from earlier stages so that students become more emotionally intelligent and able to get on the pathways of success in their lives.
