There is an old tale among Tangkhuls about a son whose IQ below average and is incapable of doing anything that can earn him convenient livelihood. His father knows about his son’s potential from the inside out, better than anyone. One day his father called his son home and promised saying, “my son, now that I’m aging, I have to make sure my inheritance dividends are properly allotted to you and your elder brothers because no one can predict the day of any man’s last breathe. So I have kept something in that wooden box for you which will sustain your life if you use that well. You are the youngest, so my dearly gift and inheritance are being kept there for you secretly.” “Can I open now and see that gift, Ava?” interrupted the son his father’s inheritance rhetoric. “No” said the father, “it is meant to be open only after I die. And if you dare opening that box while I breathe, I will curse you in the name of Ameowa (god).” So the impatient son waited and waited for the day he can unfold the gift box. Eventually, his father passes away. Although he is depressed upon his father’s death, his curiosity to see what kind of his father had kept for him in the wooden box exerts him to run with gay to the dark room. With all excited face, he opened the box. On seeing the much hyped gift, there was complete silence in his mind; his ear could not hear any noise from the noisily grieving people out of extreme shock. His heartbeat nearly comes to a standstill. He could not believe his own eyes to see what his father has inherited him. The long awaited gift was a ‘Spade No. 5’, an iron implement for tilling agricultural field. Father knows so well that it is the only source of livelihood for his youngest son and if he uses it well, he will be very rich. So the son follows accordingly in complete submission and thrives his life very well.
Now leaving the story aside, the real situation of Naga society is rising unemployment rate rapidly at an alarming pace. The reason for this doomsday is the belief that any other profession apart from being a government employee is not sustainable and is risky. Normally, we assume that being in government offers us no risk of losing job whether we are efficient or not, because the system is evolved in such a way that an employee’s skills and efficiency are not priority, nor it gives space for creativity and innovation. People have the credulity that any non-governmental employment means proportionate amount of payment and work. Therefore, the race for attaining government jobs has overshadowed the credibility and popularity of entrepreneurship and non-governmental jobs. Consequently, the capacity of survival by self as well as creativity of a person is faded naturally.
If we look at the ever increasing rate of educated unemployed in Nagaland state, the speed of increase is fearfully alarming. In order to accommodate this large number of educated unemployed youth, it’s high time for our government to start stretching the strategy towards creation of jobs. Prior to that we have to develop skills for our educated unemployed youth in our state to fit into the jobs to be created. And prior to that again, we have to revise our curriculum for colleges and universities to remain synced with the market demands for skills. A skill set has to be imparted to all students apart from their regular and conventional curriculum. The prevalence and imposition of obsolete curriculum on our growing youth populace will result into nothing but only just dumping of unemployable, unskilled youth every year who will have no option in life other than attempting NPSC/UPSC until the time they become overaged. Let’s take a quick look of the growing trend of educated unemployment rate in Nagaland.
The figure shows only in terms of educated unemployed who are registered. Yet, there must still be thousands who have not registered as educated unemployed. It demands a paradigm shift in the policy making of our government from mere education to skill-based education and from imparting of random skills to market demands-based skills. Therefore, it is indispensable on the part of government to tie up with genuine NGOs, private companies for skill development for youth on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. Effective PPP mode policy implementation can be a refreshing quick relief for our ailing employment issue, as while government will do funding the private professionals will do the work of skilling with proven efficiency. For instance, National University Student’s Skill Development (NUSSD) programme has done a commendable job by giving career-oriented skills for undergraduate college boys and girls. NUSSD is a flagship programme on skill development undertaken by Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in collaboration with Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports to enable for graduating youth from underprivileged background to acquire employment oriented skills while pursuing their usual degree programme. This programme has spread over 9 Indian states in 11 universities aiming to reach 50,000+ students by 2016. This kind of strategy is the need of the hour for the Nagas as well. If our government can request to Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports for such initiative, it can surely begin the spark of change even in a small way because it has been proving successful in many other states.
Due to paucity of time and money, students cannot afford to separately acquire skills while pursuing their studies. Therefore, the likely solution to this problem is imparting skills right there in the colleges and universities itself. The youth of the state will be ever grateful to people who advocate public policy that addresses the crux of the issue – increasing educated unemployment rate.
Ransom Lungleng, Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellow, Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India.
