Verdict 2009: Priority- Unemployment and Education
Posted : May 20, 2009 at 4:31 am [IST]
Number of unemployed in India is at around 250 to 300 million. India adds about 15 to 20 million new job seekers every year to the number of unemployed. Are they employable too? How can they be made employable?
India has been able to generate hardly 2 to 3 million jobs a year.
India is home to the largest number of illiterate in the world, with over 390 million illiterate people. About 70% of the youngsters aged between 18 and 25 are illiterate or barely literate. Twenty five million Indian children are still out of school accounting for 20% of the world’s children out of school. Why is that even after 62 years of independence? How the government ensures that every child in India attends the school up to Class X? Thereafter, every one of them must choose between higher education or skill in various vocations and trades based on personal aptitude and interest. The government and private sector must provide the best possible infrastructure for education and also financial support to those who drop out for financial reasons. Can India set up 20,000 vocational schools spread over every part of the country for skill building? Can every employment exchange be converted into a training centre?
India produces 2.3 million graduates and 350,000 engineers every year.
Only about 10% of Indian students with degrees in the arts and humanities and 25 % of Indian engineering graduates are globally competitive.
12 % of the country’s 41 million unemployed have either graduate or post graduate degrees. It means these graduates are not suitable for employment.
Is it because of the lack of knowledge in the specific domain or soft skill such as communication? The mismatch between the knowledge and skill imparted by the institutes and the one that is required by the employer must be understood and corrective action must be taken. It certainly means more proactive interaction between the employing agencies and educational institutes. Can every college and engineering set up a council of its successful alumni, and men from industry and business to decide the curricula?
About 92 % of the jobs are in the unorganized sector, where salaries are low and benefits are non-existent. The government and private sector must create more employment in organized sector. The hesitancy of not employing more number in single location to escape stringent labour laws must go with reform.
As reported, about 65% of the population or about 650 million Indians are in rural areas and their primary livelihood is agriculture and related services, which just add 26% to the GDP. In other words, 650 million people add just Rs 800.000 crore ($200 billion) to GDP every year or a mere Rs 13,200 ($300) per person per annum. This is less than Rs 40 a day. Many of the community in rural India will need handholding to learn to earn more through agriculture or from services. Plantation, animal husbandry, milk and meat production, or traditional crafts must be explored to add to the earning.
How can the country generate an employment for 15 to 20 million new entrants? India can no more do without the low cost manufacturing sector spreading all over India firstly to meet the domestic requirement and then also to cater to export to strategically competitive destination world over.
How can India enhance the per capita income for the vast majority of 650 million Indians employed in agriculture and related services with a mere Rs 13,200 per person per annum? India must facilitate their moving out of agriculture. For a comparison, China which has reached an adult literacy of 93% pulls 1 percent of its population out of agriculture every year and puts them into construction and manufacturing. Can India emulate it?
Can the new government an integrated view of the priority and find sustainable solutions within a time frame?
- Indra
Category: Uncategorized, Government Policy/Administration |
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