As the school year draws to a close, stories circulate among students about guarantees for the next term. Meanwhile, there are growing voices warning of waning student enthusiasm to return after the holiday rituals. How wise our forebears were when they labeled it a 'vacation'—reading on our faces the results of the school year stamped with school seals. However much those times retain their narrative, the gap between the two terms is vast and warrants reflection.

What we fear most is that schools become mere transit stations that students pass through in their temporal development, not mental; that they become convinced that crossing that station with the least damage and effort is acceptable; and that they are consumed by the simplest form of competition to obtain the deluge of evaluation grades, even though the well-meaning 'Nafis' often besieges them now in the complete absence of a vision of the future, its requirements, and betting on it.

Hence, the absence of direct incentives leads to a lack of desire for new learning and a diminished ability to celebrate its beginnings. Students may face difficulty in setting their boundaries when intellectual energies pour down on them. Therefore, I assert that optimal containment of students individually and in groups, examining their reality, assessing their depth of understanding of course content, and checking their mastery of curriculum applications are all sufficient to ensure that students do not leave their stations anxious about their reality. All of this makes it unnecessary for us to hurl accusations at any deficiency in achievement or behavior onto the students' heads. Over time, we roll the accusations onto school leaders and teachers, and we ask: what are the strong keys? The answer lies in dedicating student counseling and paying attention to its structural position in the educational operating system, because it is a fundamental component in producing well-adjusted students. The reality of student counseling needs a different rug that must be tightly woven.

I wish that student counseling—its merits, shortcomings, and the proper implementation forces it requires—would be launched at the start of the next academic year, God willing, with a specialized conference presenting global experiences in the field. Local universities should raise the banner of student counseling in deep research studies, and scholarships should be allocated to build extensive knowledge in its various fields, thereby producing legislators and implementers from national human resources. These packages would create the required knowledge fabric for student counseling, preempting future school and societal impact, God willing.

The operation of schools must be revamped by a renewed effort starting from within the school. The first objective of improving operational methods is to safeguard knowledge that now departs students' minds as soon as the year ends, because their emotional connection to it is hostile!

We also hope that educational calm spreads and tranquility returns to schools so that students can enjoy the possible ease of mental achievement and desired behavioral refinement. The foundations of establishment must be solid, and no one can build a structure who bypasses the roots of the problem to the implementers' pens, by devoting procedural responses at the expense of vision and general objectives. When educational activities are decided, their impact on relevant variables among students must be carefully studied. Schools should be directed to make educated groups a factory for stimulating positives, and that difference becomes a source of deep positive competitive thought. Education is a tool for change; upbringing is a means for survival, coexistence, and continuity. It is hoped that brilliant educational programs are not formulated while the real targets are absent. The most prominent issue in schools is the difficulty of finding time and space to build meaningful emotional relationships between students, their teachers, and school staff. How we wish to allocate designated times for students to engage in deep, psychologically and intellectually rewarding dialogue that manifests emotional awareness—one of the pillars that must be built from what is precious in general education schools, where foundations and beginnings are laid. All of this sparks enthusiasm for learning, which is education in itself. Moreover, in producing learners, education must focus on shaping values and creating positive attitudes. The skill-building process should not be cumulative but rather create for students a blend of being responsible citizens in their communities, nation, and family circles. Education should transfer them to very precise and deep concepts that support them in dealing with the depths of forms from which their life purposes and aspirations are generated. In summary, any new educational plan or policy must begin by recognizing the importance of students' opinions, their inclinations, ideas, and orientations toward the future, so that it becomes possible to draw the field of life they study and represent the future they aspire to. There must also be careful engagement with initiatives that support student relationships and investment in them. Since the school is the student's second home, there must be a connection with their first home and family through a clear and systematic organizational framework, and through the allocation of a student relations agency in every school to carry out this task, which deserves a channel in the school structure to be a starting point for all aspirations toward genuine partnership. When the student emotional bond flourishes, it will play a major role in the individual's value, their societal and national presence, and in building their future. Then schools will shine with seriousness and discipline, which are the basic seeds for producing a person who believes in the values of work, the importance of time, the sweetness of success, and self-confidence.

Final Word

When we search students' faces for convincing explanations of school times in their coming and going, perhaps those times are provisions for the future, but their identity has not yet been determined.