Every year, thousands of Pakistani students ace their exams — but fail to understand their emotions. In classrooms obsessed with grades, stress, and competition, one lesson remains untaught: how to be emotionally intelligent. In Pakistan’s education curriculum, the main focus has always been on academics. However, now as times change, the need for emotional education to be a part of the curriculum is becoming crucial. The question is, can Pakistani schools teach emotional education?
Emotional education is almost absent in Pakistan’s education system, where grades take precedence over growth. Because of this neglect, many students can’t even understand their own emotions and how to deal with stress and pressure, and the result ends up with them being burnt out. Furthermore, this neglect is the reason bullying has become so common and normalised in schools. A recent incident regarding bullying happened in a private school in Lahore, where a video of a girl being tortured by her peers went viral.
Singer Ali Zafar, reacting to the viral bullying video, wrote on X that while the act was cruel, the bullies, too, deserved a chance to learn and grow. “I just saw a video of a girl being bullied. I would rather not share the video because no matter how awful the act was, I feel that those girls need a fair chance in life to learn and become better human beings; however, the issue of bullying needs to be addressed,” he reflected. He highlighted how bullying is a major issue that needs a solution and that no matter how cruel the act was, the bullies still deserved another chance, as no one had even taught them if their behaviour was the right thing to do or not.
Can Pakistani Schools Teach Emotional Intelligence?
The reality is that such cases are more common than we think. Ask any student, and more than half of them would have a story to tell. More than ever, the education curriculum needs to include emotional education.
Many countries have made social and emotional education a mandatory part of their curriculum. Pakistan should follow their examples and make emotional education compulsory. This will not only help them become a better human but also help them academically as they learn to cope with stress and failures.
The pivotal step is to incorporate emotional education into academic subjects. For this to be effective, teachers need to be trained to be able to teach emotional skills to students. Schools should hold workshops to help students develop these skills and learn the importance of emotional intelligence. Parents also play a major role in this process as their help is needed to make this whole plan successful. Without their support, such activities can not be done. We need to realise how important emotional intelligence is and the benefits it provides.
“The sign of intelligent people is their ability to control their emotions by the application of reason,” said Marya Mannes, highlighting the importance of emotional intelligence.
Teaching emotional intelligence brings forth many benefits and has a major positive impact on students, like:
- Improved academic performance: As students’ emotional intelligence improves, they perform better academically as they learn how to cope with stress.
- Learning empathy: Students become more empathetic and try to understand others’ perspectives, which helps them become more compassionate.
- Better understanding of emotions: Students can deal with their own emotions much better than before and can understand what they are feeling and how to cope with it.
Emotional education is not an optional extra — it is the foundation for a kinder, stronger generation. Pakistan’s classrooms must teach not only how to think but also how to feel, connect, and care. The future depends on it.