Ambi-shun.
Tags: Unemployment, Skill India, Education, India, Careers

We often criticise the government because of our ever-rising unemployment rate. Currently at about 6.1% as per a Govt report, this is the highest % of unemployed people in a decade. This number is by no means accurate, and there are studies which put that number at a much higher %.

Both the center and the state have extensive programs under the Skill India bandwagon, with a said aim to skill atleast 40 crore people by 2022. I have seen this program in action first hand and the execution is quite poor. It is just another government program running because there is a department, there is a budget, and they have to look as if they’re doing something.

There are several long-running studies about our education system, how well or poorly equipped our youth are as they come into the job market, and about finding the right demand-supply balance through industry interaction. I’m no expert, but I work quite a bit with young people. And there is a significant difference in their attitude between when they finish high school and when they come to final year of graduation. The biggest difference is a marked loss of ambition. And that, for me, is the biggest ill plaguing our country today. Not a lack of education. Not a lack of skill. Not a lack of English knowledge. But a lack of ambition.

It is a crime that most of our young people aren’t ambitious.

I’ve tested this across various disciplines. I worked with graduates in commerce, science, and management streams, and also MBA final year students. I’ve asked students in mediocre colleges, and in top-rated institutions. By the time they finish their graduation and are ready for the job market, there is a clearly-visible drop in their ambition levels. The hope and confidence they had earlier seems to have evaporated, and this is not because of the government. It is because of how our system is; and I’m sure this is not a new trend either. Let’s take an example. I was speaking to an MBA batch of some 150 students in a reputed college about entrepreneurship. In conversation I asked how many of them were engineers. Atleast three-fourths of the class put their hands up. So I asked them why they joined MBA as freshers. They smiled and looked at each other 🤷🏻‍♂️ Then I asked them why they joined Engineering in the first place! They smiled and looked at each other 🤷🏻‍♂️. So a student has spent four years in engineering and two years in management, without actually knowing why he / she was doing it. This has to be the case with atleast 90% of our ‘educated’ young folk. We don’t know why we are studying whatever we are studying, and we have no clue about what we will do next. So is it any wonder that a bulk of our engineering graduates are termed as ‘unemployable’? Afterall, they never chose to get into that stream!

While in another management college meet, I asked another batch of MBA students (with the exact same smiles 🤷🏻‍♂️) about what they wanted to do next. Many said they wanted to write bank exams. So naturally the question would be why did they do an MBA if they wanted a bank exam; as most banks just need graduation as qualification for their exams. Instead of 3 yrs in a degree course suitable for a banking career, these students spent 4+2 yrs. They start at the same level as a graduate would, and they’ve kind of wasted 3 extra years. This is not to say that an MBA is useless. But I’m of the firm opinion that an MBA in a normal college is quite useless for a fresher. Graduates should work for a few years and then apply to a good institution, then come back into the industry armed with a management degree so they can take on greater responsibility. Not just get into an MBA because they don’t know what to do after their degree / engineering; or as a stopgap for girls before their parents get them married off.

Most of our general graduate population — the B.Com, B.Sc, BA, batch — doesn’t know why they got into that stream. And they have no clue about what they want their career path to be. Ask a kid what he / she wants to do, and they will have great plans! Astronauts, Presidents, Train Engine drivers… .At the age of 22, after 18 years of education, if a student smiles weirdly when asked about what they want to do in life, we have failed that kid. I asked a batch of graduates this question and most of them wanted to write government exams and bank exams — simply because they were the only jobs available to everyone of their age. Now the government is a huge recruiter and they pick candidates into various departments based on a single entrance test. How odd is it that the candidates don’t have a preference and they’re not working towards achieving their chosen career!! ‘Any government job’ is no career path! No wonder we have employees sitting in offices all around the country looking frustrated; and most of them can’t even quit once they get into a Govt job! Railway recruitment is yet another example. If a B.Sc Electronics student were interested in signals and communication, and then prepared for that test, it would make sense. But alas, that isn’t the case! Now most of these graduates won’t get through a Govt entrance test. There is no plan B! Coaching centers all over the country are chock-a-block with students who’ve been writing these exams for many years! And most of them don’t even work anywhere while ‘preparing’ for these exams. They write these tests till the age is past, and then wonder about what to do with life.

Ambition is being sucked out of our youngsters, and we are all responsible for it. Why are institutions like IIM and IIT so valued in our country? It is because youngsters spend a few years discussing big ideas and believing that they can achieve great things. The ecosystem there is such that most of them come out with an incredible confidence that they can take over this world. And then we have close to a crore graduates passing out each year, who mostly have no clue about what to do with life. How sad is that!

Our ancestors had it right. Teaching a child a trade is the wisest thing we can do. To be fair, that is one of the core tenets of the Skill India program. We had it right till the industrial revolution happened. When we are trained on something we like, and we make a career out of it, success is quite natural. Confidence is high, and we have fulfilment in life. The same can be achieved in a job also. Today, our economy is such that we have zillions of types of jobs available and it is easy to research what job type suits our aptitude. But how do students realise where their aptitude lies? This should ideally be done in their class X, since their first academic choice comes after that. If a kid is poor at understanding numbers, why would he be made to choose commerce as a stream? We are probably dooming him to mediocrity! The same kid may have shown great skill in science or in sport, and we haven’t even considered that. Ofcourse it is easier said than done. Circumstances play the primary role when it comes to making choices in our country. But can’t we atleast help a student identify a direction based on what he’s good at?

Most of those graduates who wanted to get into Govt jobs and didn’t have a plan B will make up the bulk of Swiggy’s hiring —

There is nothing wrong with getting into Swiggy or Amazon as a delivery executive; or with driving for Rapido or Ola. But if a candidate gets into it because there is nothing else he / she can find, it is pretty much a guarantee of a mediocre life. And I’m of the opinion that most people taking up these unskilled jobs do so just because they have to start earning. If that is a stepping stone to something they truly want to do with their life, it is wonderful. The same happened during the BPO boom of the early 2000s. Most people who got into it just did so because they had to do something. But many made it a career path and grew into it. Some just moved on and found something else. Unskilled jobs keep coming up and going out with every change in the economy. Since we are a country of a crore graduates each year, it may not be possible to find what we like at the first try owing to the competition (and the elephant in the room — reservations). Getting into an unskilled job as a stop-gap endeavour is fine — provided the candidates know what they want to do next and work towards it. But like we see, most of them don’t. So what happens when Swiggy starts firing people in a few years time when the next disruption happens? That 6.1% grows further. Atleast if the candidates had a trade they were trained on, that would become their plan B. General graduation programs are killing ambition. Our youngsters are quite intelligent. Look at the TikTok videos and memes they’re making! Genius!! But intelligence without ambition is useless. We are a nation full of intelligent people going nowhere. And that needs to change.