The Trend of Education Consultancies?

The Old Trend

A decade ago students belonging from different institutions and different phases of life used to get higher education from the universities present in their cities. The ones having an extreme urge to proving themselves amongst their peers and family opted for universities outside of their home towns but stayed within the country. The need and the desire to go and study abroad were not commonly found among individuals and the number going abroad to study was very less. It was probably because of the lack of exposure in the world or the lack of knowledge of different universities abroad and countries abroad that kept them here. The absence of telephones, emails or any other sources of communicating also discouraged parents from willing to send their children abroad to get the education and encouraged them to study near them. The education system of the institutions, especially universities in the home country was outstanding and like mentioned before, the need to go to an institute outside the residing country seemed out of question but as the exposure of all sorts increased so did the decade-old trend.

 

The New Trend

The new level of exposure promoted the idea of getting an education from far-flung areas, usually from different countries. With the passage of time and the increase in competition in the education sector, the educational institutes began getting rated according to the kind of education they provided along with the facilities and the percentage of their students achieving job right after their graduation. This was the time when the business of education consultancy was set up and the trend of education consultancy increased and then began growing rapidly.

Education Consultancies

Education Consultancy includes consultants that are usually self-employed providing solution in a specific field or area. They tend to work as both; immigration counsellors and academic counsellors providing complete guidance without any prior knowledge, degree or experience to several individuals. As a result, there are a lot of education consultancies now present that do not provide quality service and are only interested in earning huge amounts of money. These consultancies fool people by putting up banners and billboards promising scholarships and admissions abroad without telling the basic requirements and narrating the real story which includes the expenditure of huge sums of money as well. Although this has become a business which needs to be stopped the continuous attraction of people towards this business has made it very difficult to stop them from committing the crime that they are so confidently committing. 

Evaluation of the Education System around the World

 

The education system of a country can be evaluated on three main accounts. Firstly, the capacity of a country to provide educational opportunities to all its citizens. Secondly, the quality of education that is imparted to the students and thirdly, the provision of amicable livelihoods to the educated people by the government, and at the same time, the competency of the graduates to attract potential employers. Many underdeveloped and developing countries have failed miserably on all three of the aforementioned accounts. Their educated class lacks the necessary broad base knowledge, spoken and analytical skills. Outdated methods of teaching are employed which are unable to fulfill the challenges of the contemporary world. As a result, the unskilled workforce is graduating which are unable to get any good job opportunities throughout the world leading to an increase in the poverty rate of that nation. 

Narrow Outreach and Poor Quality of Education    

Today, there are millions of children around the world unable to access education. More than 72 million children of primary education age are out of school and around 760 million adults are illiterate and are not able to improve their own and as well as their children’s living conditions.

The education system of those nations has failed to reach a large proportion of its eligible population. The problem lies on the supply side where people face difficulty in accessing the educational institutes, especially in the tribal areas. Many developing countries still lack basic infrastructure and facilities needed to provide effective learning environments. Vacant teacher posts, ghost schools, non-functional colleges, absenteeism, unaffordable costs, lack of interest in education are some more commonly cited reasons for children being unable to access education in those regions.

According to a report by the United Nations, 262 million children and youth aged 6 to 17 were still out of school in 2017 and more than half of the children and adolescents are not meeting the minimum proficiency levels in reading, language, mathematics, numeracy, science, etc.

Failure to provide livelihoods

Their education system has also failed in ensuring a livelihood for educated youth. The main reason behind this is the lack of necessary skillsets and knowledge demanded by the employers. Consequently, the youth remains unemployed and the rate of unemployment keeps increasing with time. This is an alarming situation for those nations as it will lead to an increase in the poverty rate throughout the world increasing hunger.   

These underdeveloped nations need to revert the prevailing situation and take the right steps in the right direction to meet these challenges and eventually lead to progress and prosperity and on the road to development. 

Barriers to Education

A basic human right

Education is recognized as a basic human right rather than a luxury. Every individual must be given access to education so that they have knowledge of the world and the things present around them. They need to be able to understand the different phenomena around them. The access to basic education can improve their qualifications and help them to increase their living standards but to provide them there is some primary work that needs to be done, some barriers that need to be erased to help individuals in receiving education. Some of the important barriers are mentioned below

 

Barriers in Education

• One of the most serious barriers in education is the lack of funding in this area. There are countries and regions in the world that tends to spend a lot of amounts on different areas that help in the development of the country, but they seem to pay little attention to the field of education and are therefore spending fewer amounts in it.
• Another one is the lack of classrooms and schools. In many underdeveloped countries of the world, students are willing to study but due they are not provided with this facility because of the lack of proper classrooms or schools catering to their needs. Regions, where the temperatures are extreme for example, cannot have their children still on burning grounds and under the scorching sun to get an education. It is therefore that the children due to the lack of proper classrooms and schools are unable to receive even basic education. 
• The lack of learning materials is also considered a barrier hindering the way of providing access to education to individuals. The textbooks and the written material that is present are often outdated and are not able to update the knowledge of the students taking help from them. Furthermore, the lack of learning material also includes the lack of proper resource material like videos, worksheets, notebooks and even stationery that can aid in helping to learn more. They are taught information which is years old and it is because of that they are unable to compete in the growing competitive world. 

If these problems are combated by the application of proper, long-lasting solutions the barriers to education can be removed and education can be provided to the maximum number of individuals helping them to grow and become better in every way.