Education System - Can Budget 2019 Mark A Fresh Beginning?

Overhauling the education system and refocusing on career-oriented skill development is the long-term panacea for India’s employment woes, and Budget 2019 needs to provide a fresh start to that journey

- Naandika Tripathi

Ashwathy HS, 23, is preparing for the Public Service Commission (PSC) examinations at Brilliance College in Thiruvananthapuram. A BTech from Government Engineering College in the capital of Kerala, she was hired by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as a software engineer in March 2017. But after a month with the IT services bellwether that included training at TCS’s Chennai outpost, Ashwathy called it quits to focus on the PSC. “I'm more passionate about a government job. The problem with working for private companies is that the job is not secure; also I don't prefer working for longer hours and night shifts.”

Such a train of thought may run counter-intuitive to the go-go spirit associated with India’s Gen Z, but it does offer clues to the Indian malaise of unemployment — and underemployment, or people chasing jobs that have little to do with their qualifications. Ashwathy’s choice also indicates the perceptions of instability and uncertainty associated with the private sector at a time when investments for growth are subdued.

Unemployment or underemployment, India has a problem of jobs. The National Sample Survey Office’s (NSSO’s) periodic labour force survey (PLFS) for 2017-18 shows that as many as 11 states had an unemployment rate higher than the pan-Indian average. These included Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Telangana where industrialisation can’t be scoffed at (unlike, say, Kerala or Bihar). Kerala tops the charts with an unemployment rate that’s nearly two times the national norm, and Ashwathy is perhaps the perfect epitome of what’s going wrong in India’s most literate state.