By Syed Yunis Bukhari

Classrooms across Kashmir and India produce millions of students annually armed with marks, certificates, and rankings. 

Schools celebrate toppers, families obsess over percentages, and teachers push students relentlessly toward the next competitive exam. 

In the middle of this race for performance and prestige, almost nobody asks the question that matters most: what kind of life does the student actually want to build? 

The failure to ask that question is damaging thousands of young people every year.

A student finishes Class 10 and faces immediate pressure to choose a stream. Science receives social prestige, medicine and engineering dominate family talks, commerce comes next, and arts often enters the discussion only after the so-called “better options” disappear. 

Many teenagers make life-altering decisions before they fully understand their own strengths, interests, or abilities.

Career counselling could change that. Most schools still treat it as an optional extra rather than a core part of education.

That approach makes little sense in today’s world.

Students now enter a job market that changes faster than school textbooks. Artificial intelligence, healthcare technology, environmental science, digital media, biotechnology, animation, public policy, sports management, and entrepreneurship create entirely new professions every few years. 

Many students in Kashmir still receive advice rooted in a much older economy, where a small group of professions guaranteed social status and financial stability.

That gap between education and employment grows wider each........

© Kashmir Observer