Designing Education for the world’s largest youth population
By: Hisham M
Tags: Ikigai, Education, Framework, Design, India

Whats wrong with the current education system and how design can help?

Vocation

Noun | /və(ʊ)ˈkeɪʃ(ə)n/ A type of work that you feel you are suited to doing and to which you should give all your time and energy, or the feeling that a type of work suits you in this way.

The idea of vocation is central to the Christian belief that God has created each person with gifts and talents oriented toward specific purposes and a way of life. In the broader sense, Christian vocation includes the use of one’s gifts in their profession, family life, church and civic commitments for the sake of the greater common good. John Paul II says that work is a good thing for man in spite of this toil, and “perhaps, in a sense, because of it” because work is something that corresponds to man’s dignity and through it he achieves fulfilment as a human being.

With the world’s fastest growing economy and largest youth population, India sits at a crossroad right now. India is likely to have the world’s largest workforce by 2027, with a billion people aged between 15 and 64. The big demographic transition that’s yet to come. At the same time, the economy is not creating enough jobs, and therefore not fully harnessing its “demographic dividend” in preparation for the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”. Although various government policies and initiatives were launched addressing issue, none of them have showed promising results. One such program would be skill India which was set to train 1 crore youth but later failed since skills will be useful only if there are jobs for all these skilled workers.

Looking at this issue at its root from a design perspective, this situation could be a blessing in disguise. We should take advantage of the fact that this country is going to have the largest workforce on this planet and act ahead to design a system to burgeon a generation of creatives, innovators and free thinkers with strong values and sense of purpose. Help young students discover how their skills and abilities can be best used for the countries development at an early age and empower them to build up a new India on its own and later emerge as world leaders. Though India produces the smartest minds of the 21st century, our education system repels them out of the country. Students have grown to despise the bookish knowledge bombarded at the from adolescence. Setting up institutions that fill up young graduates with more information on random subjects is not the solution. Unfortunately, our education system is not helping a child to bloom as an individual. With the strong belief that each child is unique. Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important: how to live and how to die. What the country needs is not a culture of conformists. What it needs are people willing to think different and have a strong emotional connection to their work which encourages them to create a major impact on a global level.

With latest advancements in interaction design and technologies such as gaming, AI, VR that can simulate real world experiences. The possibilities are endless. There are many institutions practising non-traditional learning techniques like experiential learning in small scale scattered around the country. Apart from the basic academics, each child could have their own individual customised learning path designed accordingly to the individuals’ drives, motivations and aspirations. Such a system would be able to provide the teacher and the parent/guardian assistance in helping the child grow as an individual. By providing real-world like experiences to expose them to various interests, activities and career paths in correlation with what the country needs. It is possible to find out what’s the child’s passion, vocation and the best career path that could benefit him as an individual and also the country to have a generation of people with fulfilling careers as a whole.

There is a Japanese concept, Ikigai, which translated to “a reason for being”. To simply put it, an iterative process to discover purpose as a career diagnostic on a more long-term outlook. To put this all into perspective, it is the intersection of what you love (passion), what India needs (mission), what you are good at (vocation) and what you can get paid for (profession) that would to lead to more fulfilling lives. Philosopher and civil rights leader Howard W Thurman said, “Ask what makes you come alive and go do it.” … “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” As an answer to makes a country to be distinct and a leader is obviously the people in it or its human development Index. With a workforce of such a large magnitude “engaged” in diverse fields of work with a common goal of developing India would most definitely bring forth a socioeconomic reform that would take the nation to new heights.

China, in 1978, embarked on a remarkable program, in 1978 the government embarked on a major program of economic reform. China’s investment in the education of its workforce had a major role in the growth of china. There was a steep increase in the number of Chinese workers’ productivity (that is, increased worker efficiency) that became the driving force behind the economic boom along with export-led growth. Many such cases can be seen all around the world which tells us that it is something that’s been done before and is something that we could achieve within the timeframe we have.