Higher education must employ fresh grads
Rahul Jayaram | 31 December 2023 | Deccan Herald
Simple question: Who was responsible for what happened with the youths barging into parliament on December 13? Answer: the Modi government. Why? For having brought common young graduate Indians to their knees. Prima facie, those youngsters weren’t fifth columnists, or upstart politicians. They only sought to air their indignation, and it displayed unequivocal roiling among young educated Indians. Much of the commentariat conversed on the frightening unemployment besetting young Indians, but few steered the conversation on another relevant axis: Education.
The parliament invaders were annoyed with the current jobs scene and precarity that subsumes being semi-employed, under-employed, unemployed and/or obtaining work that doesn’t align with their requisite qualifications. When one sets their intransigence in the backdrop of Modi’s constant pronouncements on India’s prowess and growth prospects that are to come about via skills education, digital education, etc., one can empathise with their ire even more. These overtures now look like a fraud perpetrated on young India, of whom at least a set most likely voted for Modi in the last two general elections. Their statement in parliament was: Where is our future; what about my job? On these counts, Modi has messed up India, and is doing worse than his predecessor who looked enervated in his last three years as PM. But now, that time appears as if ‘Singh was King’.
An allied question over youth unemployment must reckon with education. Education ought to be an election issue. India will fare even worse than it already is doing….