Five Reasons Why All Students Are Not Able to Pursue Higher Education is a guest post by Jessie Yarrow, a journalist and blogger from Hyderabad, India. Her’s is an interesting perspective on how traditional higher education is out of reach for many all around the world. She shares my hope that modern technology can help more people move up the learning and earning ladders.

Jessie Yarrow

• Jessie Yarrow is a passionate blogger and journalist. In her free time, she writes articles on various topics such as education, gadgets, and travel. As of now she is focusing on Univariety, which provides career guidance for the students. Her gravatar link is http://en.gravatar.com/yarrowjessie. She also tweets at @Univariety and is located in Hyderabad, India. How cool is it to collaborate with someone on the other side of the world? Thanks Jessie.

Introduction

• The 21st century is has ushered in the era of education and technology. Education has become the most powerful tool through which one can attain success in their lives. Education is divided into various phases. Higher education is the most vital phase as it enables students to hone their talents and focus them on one single career. In other words, higher education turns a person from literate into an intellectual and a professional. Although secondary education has become more widespread than ever before, even in developing countries, higher education faces a number of problems and hurdles all around the world.
• Despite the fact the there has been massive progress in both education and research in the last few decades, many problems continue to plague the educational system and a huge number of students continue to stay out of its loop. Following are some of the major reasons why students are unable to pursue higher education.

Financial Problems

• In many developing countries (and even in developed countries in some cases) higher education is an endeavour for which considerable financial resources are needed which many people do not possess. Even though there are numerous options to aid such students, many of them are not aware of them or are not confident to apply. In many instances, students have to start earning at a young age to sustain their families. This robs them off the chance of studying further.

Geographical Distances

• Due to the combined efforts of various NGO’s and governments, primary as well as secondary schools have started appearing in every locality and region. However, as far as the institutions of higher education are concerned, they are still scattered at faraway places geographically. Many times, students cannot afford to travel and live away from their home for a number of reasons and this becomes a reason why they cannot pursue higher education. Then there is also the fact that in many institutions, there are limited seats ever year. The competition for these seats is very high and many students are left behind.

Syllabuses

• Many students do not have aptitudes suitable for certain type of courses. Some students come from schools where the primary education they received was not at par with what they were to be taught in degree courses. For some, the sheer amount of coursework, assignments and the readings are too much. The result, they drop out.
  In countries like India, where the primary and secondary education can be taken in local languages, English becomes a barrier when they pursue higher education and they end up failing or dropping out.

Wrong choices

• One of the biggest problems students face in higher education is the lack of career guidance. A large number of students end up choosing a degree for higher education just based on immature advice. When they start their studies and realize that they are not suitable for the particular course, it’s already too late and they end up wasting their time. Many such students get so dejected that they stop the pursuit of higher studies altogether.

Commercialisation of Education

• Despite the increasing number of educational institutions cropping up everywhere, it has become impossible to pursue higher education without incurring huge costs. Apart from the costs, there is the worrying factor that many colleges no longer give importance to anything else than grades. Students who want to explore their creativity and new ideas are forced to limit their pursuit to grades.
• Apart from these issues, there are many other problems which are proving to be the stumbling blocks for students, making higher education seem like a dream which is not possible to pursue. The advent of technology and the Internet has opened new gates for learning and education which can be used to revamp the educational world and make it easier to access for everyone from every corner of the world. Let’s hope that the quality and availability of education that can result in a successful career with continue to improve to people all over our world.

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