Talk to the youth loitering around ‘paan’ shops, strolling aimlessly on the streets of any town or city, and they will say they have no jobs. Ask them what their skills are and they will show pieces of paper called degrees, almost all of them from worthless colleges that teach an outdated syllabus. There are technical colleges at the intermediate level, but their students are not the ones running the numerous garages and workshops in various sectors, which are manned by almost illiterate persons who have learned on the job. It is no wonder then that these workers are poorly paid and unable to survive if there is even a small shift in their business environment.
This does not mean people are not working – those who need to do so to survive can be found in the much derided ‘pakora’ shops, which the supposedly educated youth consider an insult to their identity. Popular culture requires that all should have jobs with MNCs and glamorous lifestyles, driving Audis and dating film actresses. This has such a grip on the psyche that any brush with reality makes them froth from the mouth and protest on the streets. Some justify their uselessness by claiming to be political activists making sacrifices to change the world.
On the other hand, ask entrepreneurs and industrialists and they complain about the shortage of employable workers. It is common knowledge that only around ten percent of those who come out of the educational system have the basic skills to hold a job. Many of the small and medium level businesses cannot even describe the skills they require, so how are the training institutions supposed to impart them? There is an unrealistic pay gap between government jobs and those in the informal sector, making it seemingly viable for youth to spend the most productive days of their lives mugging up for all kinds of exams that allow just a few of them to get the 7th Pay Commission salaries. Those who don’t make it are left with terrible psychological problems few manage to overcome the rest of their lives. From then on, they have deep resentment for whatever they eventually manage to do – basically becoming bad workers. This is what lies behind the large number of suicides among students, who fail to cope when they glimpse the emerging reality. But parents push them to try for the ultimate, instead of teaching them to build on what they have with skills that they have.
This is an irony, because never have there been more job opportunities in India. There is no such thing as ‘jobless growth’ in an economy as diverse and potentially vast as India’s. It just needs a new culture that the pundits of the establishment fail to realise. After all, how many economists can be seen running their own enterprises?
