The problem

THE current obsession with the impact of reservations on institutions of higher education seems to curiously miss out the fact that only a minuscule minority of our young in the appropriate age groups manage access to opportunities made available by post school education and training. Well over 90 per cent of all children either do not enter the school system, of whatever quality, or drop out along the way and enter the job market. More disturbing, though not entirely unexpected, is that a vast majority are poor and disadvantaged on account of social background, location and gender and in the absence of adequate education and skill upgradation remain trapped in a cycle of low opportunity and returns – a monumental wastage of talent and enterprise.

Equally of concern is the marked disconnect between our formal education and training systems – institutions, curricula, pedagogy – and the livelihoods that the young will be engaged in, or aspire to. For some reason both our educationists and planners assume that most children will not only join school but continue, graduate and move on to access higher education. It is otherwise difficult to explain why our formal education system, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, remains divorced from the real life contexts of the young and future employment and has failed to create a meaningful vocation and skill enhancement infrastructure. Not only are existing polytechnics, Industrial Training Institutes and the like inadequate in terms of numbers, they remain hopelessly outdated and inefficient.

We thus appear trapped in a double bind. At one level, most of our youth remain outside the system of education and skill development. Those who do manage entry and somehow survive the system remain dissatisfied with what they learn and how equipped they become to enter the world of work and adulthood. On the other, potential employers continue to bemoan the scarcity of a skilled and trained workforce. In a traditional society and economy, one not experiencing rapid transformation, this may not have caused concern. But in a more rapidly growing and modernizing economy a continuing mismatch between differentiated demand and sluggish and ill-equipped supply not only works as a barrier to growth but contributes to social unrest and anomie – a situation that we are already experiencing. The escalating pressures of growing expectations and aspirations and an unwillingness to live life in old ways – an inevitable consequence of democracy, demography, urbanization, mobility and a growing culture of consumption – makes for an explosive cocktail.

How then should we reimagine both education and work and their relationships? How should our institutions be redesigned to manage greater numbers of greater diversity seeking a wider variety of practical, social and pedagogic skills to equip them to better meet the pressures of modern life? Will our institutions and programmes be able to handle the load of a simultaneous explosion of numbers and expectations? Do we have a vision and a plan to build on, modify and improve the myriad informal, household and family based systems, in particular in artisanal and crafts based occupations, which have so far helped many negotiate life and livelihood? And if, as is likely, the challenge cannot be met by the state and public provision institutions by themselves, can we institute enabling and regulatory mechanisms – legal and fiscal – to creatively draw in private providers to help meet the demand?

The challenge becomes more formidable in an economy and society marked by deep divisions and inequalities of opportunity. So far, most of our policies and programmes have focused on expanding formal education in an effort to meet the constitutional obligation of ensuring eight years of schooling to every child. That we are nowhere close to meeting even this basic goal is another story. Simultaneously, for those not going in for higher education, what we have on offer as skill training programmes and institutions are those – also woefully inadequate – designed to generate a ‘skilled’ workforce for the formal sector of industry and services. In the process, a large proportion of the young remain left out and unattended. It is telling that even after sixty years into independence, the best we can imagine for and offer to the rural disadvantaged in the form of a National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is a partial assurance of work as unskilled labour in public employment programmes.

The lack of requisite facilities for education and training for those fortunate enough to demand them is one part of the story. Equipping our youth to comprehend the changing social and work environment and exercise informed choice about livelihoods and life is another. The neglect of guidance and counselling about what to study and train for in a skewed information market about jobs and opportunities reflects a serious lacuna in our thinking about youth and their prospects. Here too, akin to the formal education and manpower training systems, the focus of those involved in counselling (for jobs) and guidance (for adjustment) remains primarily on the somewhat better-off, urban and more educated, almost as if the ‘others’ either face no problems of choice and adjustment or will somehow manage.

In the coming years the country will require millions of freshly trained persons, not only in the high-end industry and service sectors of IT and biotech, but even more in what today are economically and socially ‘undervalued’ sectors and skills. As much as doctors and engineers we need nurses and lab assistants, technicians, electricians and masons – and this list can be expanded ad nauseam. A skilled workforce is needed not just for the formal sector but in agriculture, forestry, dairying, the growing sector of retail and so on. Equally, as much as for the job market, we need to create support mechanisms for the self-employed – craftspersons and artisans – for skill upgradation, learning to deal with changed market conditions and so on. Finally, the challenge is to engage with not only the potential entrants to the workforce but also those currently employed and either facing prospects of retrenchment and closure or seeking an improvement in their prospects.

Education and training cannot and should not be reduced to merely meeting manpower requirements for the production process. Of equal concern is the need to create an active and socially concerned citizenry – one willing and able to engage in the adventure of forging an inclusive, caring and optimistic nation. This issue of Seminar explores some facets of the complex relationships between learning, livelihoods and growing up in the hope that our young are better equipped to respond to the challenges of a rapidly transforming environment.