The children are the future of their nation and the true drivers of change. It is important to develop their skills in early ages so that they become productive citizens in their states. The countries around us have unprecedentedly grown in social, political and economic lives in the past few decades. They are becoming the world's best competitors in every aspect of life. Their talent helps them represent their state in the best possible ways while attracting the attention of the world at large in every initiative they take.

Considering the continuous root of war in Afghanistan, the aid and funds were coming from the West could likely bring tremendous changes in the life of this war-torn nation, particularly women and children if there was a true and faithful effort in spending of those funds in proper ways and needed aspects.

The United States and other funding affiliates contributed a lot for the better growth of this war-torn nation after the collapse of Taliban in the field of education, child rights, women rights and other social and political affairs till now. A large amount of money was spent on children and youth to enable them take the lead in building an independent Afghanistan, but the quality education remained poor and the children lack the confidence when they grow up or graduate. The students have had always complaints from their teachers about their replicated curriculum and teaching methodologies but the government always keeps silence.

Keeping in mind the ongoing problems at schools, the government and public institutions are not doing much to overcome the ground challenges and pave the way for the youth to have full participation in social competition. The school teaching methodologies are not matching with today's demand and cannot respond to the challenges they are going to face after they graduate. The common complaint floating around various provinces is that the nationals lack the basic essential skills to compete effectively in the marketplace.

They are simply not capacitated in most required fields throughout the schooling age. Our government public schools do not provide proper foundation to turn graduates into effective citizens. When they graduate, they are completely dependent on their parents with no competitive skills. Therefore, the internal and international organizations and institutions are running their business by foreign expertise.

One of the most important questions being always asked by parents and other potential employers after 12 long years of institutionalized study is: What then are the required skills for the children and graduated youths in schooling period? Here are numbers of suggestions for the government public schools that might help to represent the best students in the society after years of schooling life.

1. Language skills: Today to have fluency in two languages or more is very important. Besides Persian and Pashto languages, the government institutions and parents should also encourage their children with English and other languages that might help them in their personal and professional life. To be familiar with foreign languages, one can get better opportunities for both personal and career growth in today's most competitive society.

2. Cognitive and critical thinking skills: Both the government and private schools are lacking the capability or knowledge to build cognitive and critical thinking skills of the children throughout their schooling years. The students are not encouraged to think and speak out their views openly in most government public schools and other private schools.

The old curriculum and repeated teaching methodologies in our government and public schools largely favour the rotten method of learning with one-way instruction and interaction, limited between the teacher and students. The teachers explain and speak and the students must only listen. When they are graduated will face big problems and they are mostly unable to demonstrate basic common sense of humor without cognitive skills.

3. Art skills: The drama, painting or music skills are not encouraged at our schools. The skills of art develop the brain to expand in its absorption of the beauty around it and defeat narrow perspectives often observed in the people without art skills, particularly in our country "Afghanistan". So, art must be added to our teaching curriculum, starting from very early ages.

4. Time management: Proper time management plays very important role. To manage the time properly with deep concern over the amount of time that we spend on specific activities, particularly to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity is mainly lacking among us all. We must learn the skill how to manage the time and know its importance.

5. Proper financial management: We all know that our parents and we earn the money after much effort and hard working. We also know that the money we take from our parents and spend or our parents pay for our school fees don't have the garden to be collected. The students at schools must be taught about the basic proper budgetary management so that they understand the basic principles of money management from a very early age in order to avoid extravagancy.

6. IT skills: The skills for Information Technology are must in today's mechanical life. Most of the graduated students aren't even able to solve the basic PC problem. They will need to improve their basic skills on information technology at school level from a very early age.

7. General knowledge: Lack of general knowledge creates social conflict among the graduates. The children who can show adequate general knowledge about the world around them prove to be more productive and confident. Those who are mostly involved in general speaking on general topics, can easily answer questions. The method of inter-school debate, quiz and general knowledge competitions get their minds work and buzz more active.

8. Household maintenances: Conducting workshops at schools can help students with basic household maintenance. Such as fixing pipe, replacing burnt lamp or socket, or painting a room and other household maintenance. These are the most important skills everyone should own in his\her personal life.

9. Inter-personal skills: Since our curriculum is following the past primary or religious rote method, there is not enough focus on social or current demand. Children lack inter-personal skills in their day to day communication and interaction, individually and in group talks. Inter-personal skill is very important to be developed in early age. This can be developed through debate and quiz competitions at schools and institutions and workshops. Our past traditional and religious method won't help us much in today's competitive society with highest demands. Instead, the government institutions, public and private schools must seek other ways.

10. Discipline and punctuality: Even though we teach discipline, our children at home, public schools must also reinforce it on children. Both the parents and the teachers must promote an atmosphere of discipline and self-control with punctuality, as society needs structure and sufficient time to function.

11. Human rights protection: The children must be taught to have respect for the fundamental rights of individual in their society that exists for all human beings in very early age. They must be taught to fully comprehend the human rights and have respect for the rights of the people living with them. Human rights are important and the children must know about it from an early age. This will help avoiding both domestic and social conflicts.
Above all, our teaching curriculum really needs to be improved if we are to compete with the world for independency, stability, prosperity and peace. We really need to think over our teaching curriculum and teaching methodologies at our both government and private schools. This is the ultimate demand of the time, age and world.