In our educational system, the priority is to finish the paper, not to understand it. To write the thesis, not to change its author. To submit the file on time, not to let an idea be born inside it.
On graduation day, certificates are raised, grades are distributed, photos are taken. But no one asks the graduate: “What did you truly learn?” Everyone is busy with the outcome… not the journey.
Here, a degree is awarded to those who please their professors, not to those who disturb them with a new question. Students master paragraph formatting… but not opinion-building. They excel at quoting… but fear adding a single line of their own.
A 2023 study at the University of Oxford found that 53% of postgraduate students said their projects did not represent them, but merely “what was required.” The tragedy? Many of them never read their own thesis again after graduation!
Thus, the student becomes skilled in filling in, not expressing. He writes to pass… not to reveal. He is rewarded for silence within the template… not for thinking outside the line.
The result? Thousands of degrees… but few ideas. Hundreds of distinctions… but hardly a single critical insight.
O makers of education: a certificate means nothing… if it does not move a mind. A grade is worthless… if it does not unsettle a question.
There is no meaning in a degree awarded to a mind that never practiced doubt. No pride in a grade that never passed through the fire of questioning.
In one defense session, a graduate student stood before his committee. He read the first paragraph of his abstract… then fell silent. His supervisor asked: “What central idea are you defending?” He replied: “I forgot, but I think I wrote it really well.”
This is not a joke… but a recurring scene. Students are written about, not writing. They are trained in formatting, not in thinking. They are rewarded for organization, not originality.
The university has turned into a production line: outline, citations, reference list, standardized model. When do we finish? When do we submit? When do we get distinction? Rarely does anyone ask: “What has changed in my mind since I began?”
A 2024 report from the Arab Center for Independent Thinking found that 72% of students never revisited their research after graduation, and 84% never used a single idea from it in their professional or personal lives.
This is not education… it is a race of filling in. Even teachers now delight more in tidy assignments than in disruptive questions. They praise the silent student… more than the daring one. Silence has become the standard of discipline… not the absence of thought.
So, O makers of degrees: can a grade write a story? Can a frame produce awareness? Does decoration on a cover page suffice… if the pages inside are empty of ideas?
A paper does not create a mind. Distinction does not guarantee awareness. And any system that never asks: “What is the idea?” will end up graduating puppets who excel at answering… but tremble before questioning.
