For the sake of future

These days we often talk about unemployment and its dangerous impact on our society. All this is real. We also try to underline the obligations of the government to fill all the vacant posts in all the departments. That too is justified. At the same time we know, and we accept, that the capacity of the government to absorb our educated youth is very limited.

And that too is not to be denied. Then the focus comes to private sector, entrepreneurship, and moving outside into the larger corporate spaces. That is fine; but then the questions follow. Do our children have the necessary skill set and knowledge component to develop the private sector here, to get better positions in the corporate sector in India and abroad. Do our youth have the capacity, will and ability to become successful entrepreneurs.

So all those elements that are to be taken as a given, and all those questions that stare us in our eye, should go into making a worthwhile conversation amongst us about the future prospect of our young generation. In this regard, as part of that conversation, there are some very disturbing trends that have surfaced up in our educational landscape. One, that our children in schools are not taught the skills that are needed to meet the challenges to be faced ahead. The emphasis on skills, on personality building, is strikingly absent.

Our students might be brilliant in terms of their subject knowledge, but what is takes to make an impact and find a decent position in larger competitive spaces, is largely absent. Our system, our teachers, and our parents are not adequately informed about this, and they rather push students towards the known competitive exams that are only few and can make ways for a small percentage of students up the ladder of professional accomplishment.

Another disturbing trend is that the choice for subjects like Maths and Physics is not so strong now. At a time when the world is taken over by digital revolution and new jobs are getting created in this sphere, if the interest in the subjects like Maths and Physics is missing, it needs attention. After all, the underlying knowledge for things like AI, and ML is what we normally know as Maths and Physics. So our education system needs to take note of these aberrations.