On February 28, The Morung Express weekly poll query featured this question: “In the field of education, should Nagaland Government prioritise Science over Arts & Humanities to tackle unemployment?” A rather loaded question, it seemed to bring up a classic Science versus Humanities debate, reflecting a general air of discontent concerning the state’s economic stagnation.
One of the responses went like this, “Science moulds a child to be more skillful and productive in life than arts & humanities.” Fair enough.
A majority of the responses, however, challenged this notion while arguing that it is illogical to compare and pit one academic stream against the other.
On the surface, the Science-over-the-Humanities argument seems logically grounded, as science drives innovation, and innovation drives economies. However, the relationship between academic streams and employment, or rather unemployment in Nagaland, is far more complex.
While the intent is well understood, viewing unemployment solely through the lens of academic streams risks ignoring the underlying rot in the prevailing governance system. To suggest that a shift toward Science education will automatically fix unemployment assumes that jobs already exist, waiting only for the right kind of graduate to fill them. Unfortunately, the ground reality in Nagaland suggests otherwise.
One need only look at the number of unemployed graduates in Nagaland, including those with engineering and medical degrees, to realise that a Bachelor of Science is not a job guarantee.
Perhaps the most glaring example of this conundrum lies in the plight of Forensic Science graduates. They remain unemployed, not because their degree lacks merit, but because the state lacks the infrastructure to absorb them.
Aside from basic fingerprinting techniques, narcotics, crime scene photography and polygraph, the state’s sole Forensic Science Laboratory in Dimapur hits a roadblock when it comes to DNA analysis, ballistics and verifying questioned documents.
It is a state of affairs where Forensic graduates have to return to a place where the requisite industry does not exist. When the market is this narrow, shifting from History to Chemistry is not going to create jobs. All it would achieve is changing the subject of the degree held by the unemployed person.
If the “Sciences” were the solution to the economic woes, there would not be Science graduates applying for clerical posts, and even non-ministerial multi tasking jobs, alongside their humanities counterparts.
It would be a flawed assumption to expect that studying science will automatically lead to employment. Likewise, Arts and Humanities graduates are not unemployed because their disciplines lack value, but because the jobs market is over-dependent on government posts.
The real issue is not what students are studying, but whether the education system is producing graduates, who are employable; and whether the economy is capable of absorbing them. The more meaningful question would be whether our education system and economy are aligned.
Beyond the Sciences versus Arts debate, what Nagaland truly needs is an all-inclusive scientific temper.
The writer is a Principal Correspondent at The Morung Express. Comments can be sent to imkongwalls@gmail.com
