Causes of Educated Unemployment in India
In India, there has been an alarming phase of mass-unemployment among the educated youth. Post-graduates and graduates are walking pillar to post in search of employment.
When there is slowdown in economy, there is surge in the number of uneducated unemployed people. Many educated people are knocking at the gates of offices just for the position of a petty clerk and get disappointed when they read the words ‘No Vacancy’ on the gate. Numerous cases of suicide among the unemployed young men have been a feature of our time.
Defective Education System: The main cause of this large-scale unemployment among the educated youth in India is our defective system of education. India is an agricultural country, more than 70% of the people of India live in villages and their main source of livelihood is cultivation.
Unfortunately, a cultivator’s son, after receiving University degree, does not want to follow his father’s profession. He would prefer to rot in cities and towns, in search of clerical employment. This has made our country’s unemployment problem more acute and far more distressing. It is a pity that our system of University education does not cater to the need of these students i.e. those who belong to agriculturist profession. They should be imparted particular kind of education, laying special stress on the latest methods of cultivation and farm-managing. There are two or three agricultural colleges in every State, and even in these colleges, ordinary peasants cannot afford to get their sons’ education.
Lack of Industrial and Technical Training: Lack of industrial and technical training is also one of the major causes, contributing to the mass- unemployment among the educated young men in India. There are a very few technical and engineering institutions in the country, and, secondly, technical education is so costly that common people cannot afford to get their wards admitted in these institutions.
No doubt, with the operation of our ‘Five-Year Plans’ there is a substantial need of technically-trained young men. But it must be noted that these newly sprung-up industries cannot offer employment to non-technically educated youth. And technically-trained young men are very few in the country and we have to get foreign technicians imported to run these industries.
Lack of Network of Cottage Industries: India is a large and predominantly agricultural country. Her economic lot is connected with the economic well-being of her village dwellers. Our country needs above everything else, a network of cottage industries which can absorb our millions of unemployed educated youth.
Mentality: Our educated young men are suffering from a strange malady. They are scrambling head-way after the glitter of working in urban offices; they do not want to settle in villages. They have something of a village-phobia. They, especially after receiving education in cities and towns, prefer to starve in cities to settling down in their villages and do their ancestral work. This mentality of our educated young men must be changed. They should be made to believe that there is no loss of dignity on their part, if they do manual work, honestly and sincerely. ‘Every labor has its own vanity’.
Conclusion: Educated youth is the pillar of a nation’s future destiny. A nation, whose educated young men walk pillar to post in search of a petty clerk’s job, cannot make progress in the substantial sense of the term. India’s is a newly-born independence. We have to build her up from very scratch.
It is the educated young men and women, on whose shoulder lies the great responsibility of making India an ideally socialist state. Our young men, on their own part, must make it a principle that they should not run after the outwardly shine of urban life, rather they should settle in villages, thereby contributing their quota of services in the build-up of our villages.