The youth are one of the most critical assets of any country. The responsibility of the development of the country lies on their shoulder.
Presently, approximately half of the population of India comes under the category of youths. But the continuously rising unemployment in our country is a major problem for the young generation.
Unemployment is leading to depression, substance abuse, criminal activities and fraudulent activities amongst the youth. By the grace of our corrupt political institution, we have got one of the worst educational systems in the world. This educational system is equally responsible for this degrading situation of employment.
It is historically evident that every developed country be it USA, Germany or Japan has spent a large part of their money for the betterment of their educational system, but our budget allocation for education always remains only 2-5% of the GDP. The allocated budget also gets filtered from layers of ‘babus (corrupt politicians)’ in between. As Durkheim said, every social institution of the society is interdependent. This dysfunctionality amongst youth is disturbing the equilibrium of the society.
In my area, engineering is a “socially constructed dream” for most of the students who have just passed their 10th board exams. But sadly, the employment rate of this stream is very disturbing. According to a recent report, only 7% of the total engineering students can be called skilled engineers.
If we leave some premium engineering college like the IITs, most private engineering colleges the condition of other private engineering colleges is horrible. In Maharashtra, most private engineering colleges are owned by the politicians. Many universities do not have qualified professors and proper infrastructure. But the fees are sufficient enough for any middle-class family to sink in debt or some time to even lead them to sell their properties. Sometimes it feels as if today, it’s easier to get a car loan or a home loan rather than an educational loan.
After engineering, the second most important trend which I have observed is of getting government jobs. I have studied till higher secondary in Nagpur. I used to study at one of the famous libraries in the city. This library can occupy 250-300 students. At that time, most students were preparing for exams like Staff Selection Commission (SSC), banks, railways and other competitive level exams.
Currently, I am pursuing my higher education in Mumbai, and whenever I come to Nagpur, I visit this library. Even today, most people who were there five years ago, are still there preparing for competitive exams. Many students are preparing for Group D and Group C exam.
These students belong to the socially unprivileged and economically backwards class of the society. They find government jobs as the way to get out of economic distress situation of them. I have seen them studying day and night in the library, but still, they are unemployed.
There are many reasons one can draw which are responsible for this condition like the insufficient preparations by the students which is a common conscience in my area. This might also be true up to a certain extent, but if we try to read between the lines, then we can find a deeper reason for this.
Firstly, the corrupt and lazy system of examination is capable enough to take down the morale of students. Punctuality is not a cup of tea of our ‘babus’ who have the responsibility of conducting exams.
There are two or three stages to be cleared depending on the subject and many times, the result of the first phase gets declared after one or two years of the date of examination. This tedious process of the examination often adversely affects the preparation of the students.
A recent example is the Intelligence Bureau ACIO Tier 1- 2017 examination held on 15/10/2017. Candidates came up with issues that question paper was not sealed, no checking and biometric system at examination centre was carried out and that many questions were copied from preparatory websites.
Secondly, cancellation of the exam and re-examination is also a major problem in our system. The staff selection commission is one of the prestigious exams of the country, and many major posts in the bureaucratic system get selected through this exam.
But there are several incidents in which SSC exams gets cancelled after the exam took place because a question paper got leaked before the exam. Even online exams get cancelled due to one reason or another.
Lakhs of students who are truly dedicated and work hard to pass these exams do not deserve this type of treatment, but thanks to this incapable system these students are suffering.
One such incident happened one year ago which was terrible, and no rational mind can accept it at any cost. It was the recruitment for the post of the Multi Tasking Staff (MTS) and Postman in the department of Post Office for the state of Maharashtra. The exam took place on March 29, 2015, and May 3, 2015. The results came out in March 2016.
So, after completing formalities, all the selected students got joining letter and depending on their region and date of joining, some candidates had joined the office, and some were waiting for their date of joining. All was going well until the department put stay on this recruitment giving the reason of discrepancies that happened in the examination process.
They didn’t even care to specify the issue on the notice they had put on their website. By the time they put a stay on the job, some candidates had completed one month in the office and also got their first salaries. These candidates were also kicked out of their job. I happened to meet with many candidates in the main office of the department of Post situated at Nagpur. They had gathered there to decide the future strategy of this problem.
That scene was very horrible. Some selected candidates were married and had left their earlier occupation for this job. Many candidates were from the rural areas, and this job was very crucial for their family as far as their economic condition was is concerned.
So, they all decided to take this matter to the court of different regions. For the same, these people had to bear lawyer fees, transportation costs and most importantly spend their precious time for a problem which occurs to them due to the mistake of the system.
It took more than a year for the decision of the court to come which was given by the Aurangabad court in favour of the selected candidates. The department was ordered to reinstate them. But, this has still not been carried out and the court has considered this act as a contempt of court.
Keynesian economics which paved out a way for the world during the great depression says that government spending is very necessary to generate employment and for the healthy condition of the market. But presently, the lesser number of job opportunities in government offices is also a major issue of concern. For example, in Maharashtra, there is need of 1,15,000 government employees at the various office, but the government is not opening the recruitment giving the reason of economic debt. The lack of human resources is surely affecting the function of the respective office.
The above-mentioned incident shows a mirror to this system which needs to be reform at the earliest because such system is incapable of giving value worth to the hard work of lakhs of people in this country.
Hence we as a nation are losing one of the essential assets of our country in the form of youth. Getting government jobs is a dream of many, and it is the responsibility of government to provide them with a proper platform which will benefit both the individual and the society.