An interesting trend that seems to gain greater momentum by the day is the increasing felt-need of people from all walks of Indian society to invest in education. A field visit to even the remote areas seems to attest to this trend. Interestingly, English-convent education is the preferred medium of education. A visit to small towns and a cursory glance at the advertising billboards seems to underscore the attempt by educational institutions to gain the attention of passersby who may at some point be a consumer of their services. Amongst the parents, there is a fond hope that, once their child completes their education, they will gain “good” employment, which in turn comes with its own social and economic mobility. This is a welcome long-term development, but comes often ends us with considerable risks to a household. The risks arise not because of the households, but because of the fact that mediocrity is the norm in the Indian Education system. Over the years, either the education system has emerged the single most important destination to people who suffer from either intellectual poverty or have no hope for any gainful employment in the sector. The last three decades has witnessed the emergence of the educational system as the refuge for incredibly stupid people in important positions. Even the most meaningful governmental measures are circumvented. UGC guidelines recommend modifications in the syllabus every five years, with the hope that new developments may be incorporated. Ingenious methods are founds. A few chapters are deleted every few years and an occasional chapter added. After a few years, the deleted chapters are usually brought back and the new ones deleted.
On the other hand, completely unaware of the internal working of the system Parents, continue to invest large sums in the hope that their child will succeed. In order to achieve their aim parents, especially those with higher incomes send their children to distant places – like people from rural areas of Kurnool district sending their kids to places like Vijayawada. Families invest substantial amounts of money for years before their efforts reach fruition. Financial Constraints convince a rural household to take the next best option: send their children to English medium schools in the vicinity of their village – usually more expensive. The interesting aspect of contemporary Andhra Pradesh is the extent to which families are willing to sacrifice their immediate needs for unknown future benefits that may accrue from educating their children. This, growing expenditure has a number of potentially negative repercussions for the families over the long-term (apart from an immediate pressure on the financial health of households).
The above problems need to be understood in the context of the nature of our demographics. It has been pointed out that India's labour force is growing at 2.5 percent per year, the ability to generate employment leads to the absorption of only 2.3 percent in a year – where about 7 million people join the pool of workforce annually (on a national scale). Demographically, about 65 percent of the country’s labour is in the age group 15-29 years, make employment generation as a central concern of policy makers. McKinsey points out, India has an estimated 14 million young professionals-twice that of the US-and topped up this number by 2.5 million new graduates every year, only 10 to 20 per cent of these would ultimately get hired by MNCs.
The picture below is a small advertisement of a college in Koilakuntla, a small town in Kurnool District of Andhra Pradesh. A poster essentially personifies the problems with the education system in contemporary Andhra Pradesh. It is an advertisement of a distance education study centre that claims “even if one fails in intermediate (10+2 classes) they can get a degree”. Interestingly, a unique selling proposition of the college is its ability to impart training in various disciplines including English.
The highlighted areas in the above image draw immediate attention to the nature of the problem that contemporary Indian Education system faces. These educational institutions predominantly churn out unemployable, low skilled students are likely to emerge as a problems that aggravate the problems of households, especially the rural poor who spend a large proportion of their earnings on such education. At best such graduates will only gain low paying jobs that will not allow them to earn sufficient amounts to repay large debts incurred by their families while leaving the hope for any future socio-economic advancement a mere mirage.
A remarkable feature of rural society in Andhra Pradesh, especially over the last decade, is its willingness to assume large sums of high cost debts in order to meet the educational requirements. While debt are incurred in the present and have to be serviced for years, the employability of the students seems to indicate that there is little possibility of households repaying these based on the earnings from the skills learnt in college years. Students need to invest substantial amounts in acquiring new skills – often from educational institutes like those in the above photo.
The response of the government to this problem is insufficient. In right earnest, it has offered to invest large amounts in imparting skills. The National Skill Development Council, which hopes to re-skill about 500 million people over the next two decades. Mercer Consulting has estimated that only about 20 percent of those graduating have the skills required by Industry. It has been pointed out that only 25 percent of about 450,000 annual engineering graduates in India are directly employable by technology companies. It has invited the participation of the private sector in the hope that reach of the private sector will help quickly re-orient the poorly skilled graduate. This is well intentioned but unfortunately a part of the problem. Private sector efficiency in India is often overly hyped, under-performing segment. The case of AP is illustrative: there are thousands of private engineering colleges and schools which do not have the basic amenities yet, have licences to operate almost unregulated and not answerable even to those who consume their services.
At a theoretical level, sociologists like Richard Sennett (in The Culture of New Capitalism) have pointed out to the growing ‘spectre of uselessness’ in an era when skills of employees often become redundant very quickly. The present programmes are conceived in such a manner that they often encourage skilling programmes which are required in distant cities – thereby encouraging migration to urban areas. That in turn adds to the pressures on policy makers as our cities are not equipped to supporting such huge population movements. Delivering basic amenities to these rapidly growing cities consumes most of the time and resources of the institution of the State, therefore forcing the government to reduce spending on other areas. The best areas where such government spending can be reduced without the strains of funding squeeze popping up instantly: Education, health and other welfare measures. This completes the vicious downward spiral for any society. The disastrous impact of this is always felt in the long-term, often spaced out over decades. Twenty years of slashing spending on education completes the cycle that has led to the ascendency of mediocrity in the education system. Dismantling this could be more difficult because special interests now form a powerful block. Since, Indian businesses thrive on siphoning public funds, these institutes will invariably corner any new funds.
The chart below provides an overview of the urban populations over the next few decades. A 2010 study by McKinsey Global Institute points out that by 2030, Indian cities are expected to generate 70 percent of the new jobs created, thereby accentuating the growing magnetism of cities, especially amongst the youth. This phenomenal urban expansion will lead to nearly 590 million people residing in cities by 2030 (an increase from 290 million 2001 and 340 million in 2008) – or about 40 percent of India’s population. In order to place this growth in historical perspective, it is imperative to point out that it took an estimated four decades for the urban population to reach 230 million. India is expected to have 6 megacities with a population of more than 10 million, 13 cities with a population of more than 4 million and 68 cities with a population of more than 1 million while at least 331 cities will have a population of less than 1 million.
It is pertinent to note that haphazard growth poses major social as well as economic risks -something which is ignored. Pity the policy makers for the simple reason that problems in the present are sufficiently overwhelming, let alone future possible headaches.
New Approach Needed
There is an important need for a new approach. This need also arises (in my personal view) in mistaken notions and biases that we have in the present. We often believe that the future skill requirements will be exactly like the requirements in the most recent past. Unfortunately, the economy is more dynamic – especially when we need to factor in the technological change. There is, therefore, an urgent need for Indian re-skilling programmes to conceptualise and encourage programmes that impact skills based on regional requirements in the economy and society. That customised knowledge is completely lacking in the present. To illustrate this with an example: Indian economy is predominantly agrarian in nature. Yet, very few of the re-skilling courses in vogue currently, attempt to train human resources in agriculture and water related issues. Courses that would be extremely useful are those related to soil and water quality testing.
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