The 2009 National Youth Readership Survey indicates that the three fourths are matriculates. Here the system needs to modify/change itself to address this very important issue from national strategic perspective of future of our country as it involves the quality of future human resource . In order to remedy the present stalemate We have to differentiate the "EDUCABLE" from " TRAINABLE". As well identify that is both "Trainable as well as Educable" as this segment is useful to impart further education and become Teachers/professors as well as Vocational Trainers. All this needs to be done by testing them from 8 class onwards. The educable should be encouraged to carry on further studies by subsidizing their education and the Trainable should be channelized to the Vocational stream. Here comes the log jam of gradation of our job vs pay structure system in which blue collar jobs are placed at the lowest end of the spectrum. We need to address our industry as well as society's mind set in which it will be possible that a blue collar worker will be able to earn as much as a top grade civil servant/ executive with equal experience. Only than the talented trainable segment will be encouraged to become vocationalised. Other wise the societal mindset of "SADA MUNDA B.A KAR RIHA HAI JEE" syndrome will continue and keep churning out Graduates with no job avenues. Here the academicians need to step in - Instead of having Graduates with Physical Education, History and Punjabi as subjects which hardly provides any avenues for jobs ,what needs to be done is that Universities need to sit with local industry and involve them to take the initiative soonest to dovetail, change and modify their syllabus to create education degrees that guarantee jobs in the industry. Coming to public sector they also need to sit with government also which needs to provide new job duty profiles to the university as much has changed in the govt also in wake of computerization and management study advances. You do not need clerks –but you need computer executives/ operators, You do not need caretakers but we need Managers to run various govt facilities .Incidentally the science stream ensures job guarantee but there are numerous support systems in Industry that requires arts stream trained graduates . This needs to taken up immediately. This will ensure that the courses are job oriented and the student population gets channelized post matriculation phase onwards into educable, educable cum trainable and trainable streams. The above given suggestions need immediate govt as well as industry support otherwise the matriculate segment is likely to grow resulting in youth unrest and be a good recruiting ground for movements like naxalism etc.
These views of mine were published in The Tribune as a letter to editor-
ReplyDeleteTHE TRIBUNE CHANDIGARH
Wednesday, November 24, 2010, Chandigarh, India
L E T T E R S T O T H E E D I T O R
Educable and Trainable
The editorial “No college for them” (Nov 19) was apt. Actually the system needs to modify/change itself to address this very important issue from national perspective and the future of our country as it involves the quality of future human resources.
In order to remedy the present stalemate we have to differentiate between the “educable” and “ trainable” as well as identify those who can be trained and educated to impart further education and become teachers and vocational trainers. All this needs to be done by testing them from Class VIII onwards. The educable should be encouraged to carry on further studies by subsidising their education and the trainable should be put into vocational streams.
Here comes the logjam of gradation of our job vs pay structure system in which blue collar jobs are placed at the lowest end of the spectrum. We need to address our industry’s as well as society’s mindset in which it will be possible that a blue collar worker will be able to earn as much as a top grade civil servant/ executive with equal experience.
Only then will the talented trainable segment be encouraged to move towards vocational jobs. Otherwise, the societal mindset will continue and keep churning out graduates with no job avenues. Instead of producing unemployable graduates, what needs to be done is that universities should be in touch with the local industry and involve them to take the initiative to dovetail, change and modify their syllabus to award degrees that guarantee jobs.
Lt-Col JASJIT SINGH GILL (retd), Ludhiana