Educational Degrees and their employability

Perhaps India produces highest number of graduates every year from its colleges and universities. These include professional degrees like Engineering, MBA, MBBS besides many other divergent degrees. And the degree certification means employability also. Having less job opportunities has resulted in unemployment in our country. But of late, we have seen many prominent educationalists, industrialists and top of the industry managers whining about quality of education and employability of the passing out students from our education system. Yesterday, one of my friends was mentioning some remarks by R. C. Bhargava, Chairman of Maruti Udhyog on this issue. Sometime ago, Narayanmurthy had raised similar issue about employability of even IIT pass outs. So, What is the problem?

Indian education system has some core issues, like we are forced to study more on “WHAT” than “WHY & HOW”. Perhaps this is result of Mecaulayin education system, which is at the core of even today’s Indian education system. But even after that, Indians have achieved great heights in the field of academics. IITs and IIMs have produced number of luminaries in various fields. Then “WHY & HOW” this lack of employability has crept in?

While putting forth my opinion here, let me very specifically clarify that I don’t have any opinion about state policies of India. Whatever I am going to put here is only my personal opinion regarding educational scenario and its repercussions in our country.

The issue of unemployable graduates can be explained by two hindi quotes:

1.   कच्चे लोहे पर धार नही चढती।

2.   कुछ दोष लोहे का है तो कुछ दोष लोहार का भी है।

Now let me explain these quotes in context of our state policies and employability of graduates.

1.   कच्चे लोहे पर धार नही चढती (Pig Iron can’t be sharpened into a blade) : Our education system provides reservations in admission. The present system of reservation is caste-based. Therefore, all the Govt. higher education institutions, including IITs, NITs, AIIMs, etc are to provide admission on 50% seats on the basis of caste, even though the student has practically no qualifying ability or aptitude. Now, the esteemed institutes have to maintain their educational level, but can these students, who don’t have the basic qualifying abilities, be sharpened into an excellent professionals?

2.   कुछ दोष लोहे का है तो कुछ दोष लोहार का भी है (If some shortcoming are in the iron, then some faults are also in the blacksmith): This quote says in our present context that if some product (student) is imperfect then it is not only due to raw material, there is some fault on part of artisan/ manufacturer (teacher) also. In the present scenario, many highly deserving students don’t get chances, due to reservation policy, to get admission in institutes of excellences. So, to fulfil their dreams, they have to take admission in other colleges, mainly private colleges. Private college management also understands this problem, hence to attract good students, they advertise/ publicise their institutes, its campuses, buildings, facilities, etc etc. But problem is that they lack in key ingredient for students i.e. exceptionally good teachers. We all know, that it is very very difficult to find really good teachers. Here, we must understand the difference between an expert of a subject and an excellent teacher of the same.

 

Thus, if we combine the total effect, we find a situation that most of the excellent teachers are not getting all the good students and most of the good students are not getting excellent teachers. The net resultant is lack of employability of our college graduates.

Koi Nrup Hou Hamhi Ka Hani.

   "कोउ नृप होउ हमहि का हानी।
    चेरि छाड़ि अब होब कि रानी॥3॥"
This doha of Ramcharit Manas, Ayodyakand, by Tulsi Das is very frequently referred to in public discussions to show apolitical nature of common man of India. This is referred in present political discussion with intent that whoever wins the election, status of a common man on streets remains unchanged. So, it is practically irrelevant for a common man, who wins or who loses in election.
I was perturbed why such lines were used in Ramcharit Manas, which otherwise is a book of very balanced opinion. So, I went through the book to understand the context and content of these words. And what I interpreted is just opposite of what it is used for.
In the story, the scene is Ram's accession to the throne of Ayodya, as declared by Dashrath. Everybody is happy and getting prepared for the ceremony. Dashrath had planned it in haste and accession was publicly known on the day of accession. Manthara, the nanny of Kaykeyi, came to know suddenly about it by the humbug going on around. Since she was well wisher of Kaykeyi and her duty was to serve and advise her, Manthara rushed to Kaykeyi to tell her about this deception. Manthara knew that Dashrath was oath bound to hand over the throne to Kaykeyi's son, Bharat. So, when she came to know about Ram's accession to throne, she understood that Kaykeyi was being betrayed. But when she reached there with this news, she was shocked to see that Kaykeyi already knew about it and she was getting happily prepared for the the ceremony.
Manthara, the nanny, though was servant of Kaykeyi, but she considered her as her daughter. She had came with her to Ayodhya after Kaykeyi's marriage with Dashrath. She tried to warn her and asked her to dissuade Dashrath from doing so. Kaykeyi did not listen her advises. She told her that Ram was dearer than Bharat. He respected her, if not more then not even less than Bharat. Kaykeyi said that Ram will look after the state, people and his brothers better than any of the his brothers. So, Kaykeyi was not listening her advices. In that scenario, Manthara had said that if Ram becomes king now, may be he will look after Kaykeyi and Bharat, but what after that. Bharat and his sons will never be kings, at the best they will be adjutants of Ram and his sons. Kaushalya will be rajmata, Kaykeyi will never get that status. There was nothing wrong in it, but all this was her and her Son's right, which she is handing over on platter to Ram. Today she may not realise, but later, when she will understand, them don't blame her (Manthara). She (Manthara) said that this all she was doing for Kaykeyi. In this context, Manthara said that What she was going to gain, whoever be king, it is immaterial for her. She was a servant and will remain servant, she is not going to be queen.
What she meant was that one whose stakes are high, should be more concerned. She did not meant that common people should not take interest in politics. If we look at the scenario, Manthara was more concerned about what was happening than Kaykeyi. With those words, TulasiDas was conveying that anyone who is going to be affected by a decision, should carefully analyse the pros and cons and after that take what is prudent in those situations.  Only those can remain aloof, who are not at all related with that. Kaykeyi took her decision and went to kop-bhavan and what happened we all know.
Now let's try to analyse importance or applicability of these lines in present political system. First and foremost thing is that we live in a democratic society. Here, there is no Dashrath, Kaykeyi or Manthara, we the people of India play all these roles - We are Dashrath during elections, Kaykeyi during election campaigns and Manthara during electoral discussions. So, though, we remain common man after elections, but our role and responsibility is immense in this political system. We can't reman aloof and say "koi nrup ho hame ka  hani", because it is our responsibility, like Dashrath, to select the new king and like Kaykeyi to allow the facilitation of the accession of new king to throne or putting a brake on the system by going to Kop-Bhavan. But we can't remain aloof to the things. By quoting these words in wrong context has harmed the Indian polity more than any other quote. We should always take these words in proper context and never be apolitical in a democratic system.