India’s key to future success — its youth — is a ticking time bomb. It is a growing mass of largely undernourished, undereducated, unemployable young people who aspire for a better life but don’t have the means to get there. Why? Because they aren’t qualified for the job market, and even if they are, jobs don’t exist.
The above is the central thesis of a must-read Tehelka essay by Avalok Langer that demolishes the easy comfort of India’s so-called ‘youth dividend.’ Where for decades, we have worried about illiteracy, we now have to wrestle with a new crisis in education: A generation of functionally uneducated Indians being churned out of a fourth-rate education system. They are functionally uneducated in a variety of ways.
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor
via Unskilled, unemployed, angry: Is India Tomorrow headed for disaster? | Firstpost.
Related Posts
India / Youth Unemployment
India, one of the youngest countries in the world, where youth accounted for 20% of the total population in 2011, according to the Registrar General of India. More importantly, the dependency ratio – the number of children and elderly people per working-age person — declined 21% over the last three decades. In China, the ratio … Continue reading »
India – Education: A necessary but not a sufficient basis for social mobility
“ Has wider access to education increased social mobility in India? writes Hasan Suroor in Education is a necessary but not a sufficient basis for social mobility on thehindu.com. She interviews Oxford academic Craig Jeffrey, ‘a fellow and tutor in Geography at St. John’s College, who speaks fluent Hindi and Urdu’ and ‘who spent several … Continue reading »
Unesco – India – Over a third of 15 to 19 year olds have less than lower secondary education
Over one quarter of young people in South and West Asia fail to complete primary school and lack skills for work. In India alone over a third of 15 to 19 year olds in India have less than a lower secondary education and lack the skills they need for work and young people without skills …Continue reading »
India – Vocational Education Qualifications – The need to change the mindset of parents
Launching the pilot project on National Vocational Education Qualifications Framework (NVEQF) in Haryana, union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal emphasised the need to change the mindset of parents to promote vocational education in the country. “India is a country of youth. There is a need to give them such education, which may get them … Continue reading »
Job Market Monitor 
Discussion
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
Pingback: India / A “demographic dividend” ? | Job Market Monitor - May 9, 2013