A TIME BOMB waiting to burst :Education VS Employability

While reading TOI, I am really concerned with the future of our education system. Let me explain ..In a place called Solan a PhD, an MBA and many one have registered under NREGA. What's NREGA?? Its National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Every unemployed citizen in the rural area in entitled to employment under this act. The only difference is the work in more on the manual side like digging roads, pits etc..

This raises some tough questions. With the HR managers and the India Inc always shouting on top of their voice that – there are NO GOOD PEOPLE…where have all the good people gone??

While the education system is churning out PhDs, MBA, Masters, and Bachelors like a mass manufacturing products, the utility and the quality of those products are in question?? … Mr Sibal, Mr. education minister are you listening?? Tough Mr. Sibal has taken some great steps in reforming education, he needs to look at more of OUTPUT or RESULT oriented education policy.

With new education bill passing in the parliament, its even funny, the government has legitimised the private education system. Now these people are free to charge what ever they what without being accountable for the quality of education. Today, where the students and the parents invest on an average Rs 8 Lakhs for an engineering degree, Rs. 25 Lakhs for a medical degree and Rs.7 Lakhs for an MBA. The whole of investment is done for supposedly the better future of their kid, and when the kind lands into a job that pays miniscule salary and offers him a menial job, the onus of kids success is dumped solely on the student.

While making sales calls I happened to be meeting the President and the Owner of a large education society which has approx 35000 students studying in it. I was made to wait for 2 hours and then an arrogant chief of the institution arrived, he called us inside. It was admission time, this man from any angle did not look like an educationist but called himself Prof. He said he is very busy, so we waited. He had people walking in and out of his room. TO everyone he was quoting a figure.. if you need admissions, 3 lakhs for this campus, 2 lakhs for another and 1.5 lakhs for a distant campus… ALL IN CASH, no receipt , plus fees..??

People with no background in education are owners of large education institutions. Obviously there is no education imparted in colleges.. hence the business of coaching classes is booming. I fail to differentiate between the college and coaching class of tutorial classes.. both have the same number of student yet people go for it.

Ultimately… only 23% MBA are employable, 15% of grads are employable… majority take menial jobs.. and India as a nation is moving towards a HIGHLY QUALIFIED UNEMPLOYABLE nation with LOW PRODUCTIVITY???

Apart from their brilliant academic track records Ankit Chaudhary, Rajinder Rana, Anchal, Devi, Anjali and a bunch of others like them in Nauni, a picturesque town nestled in Solan, 45 km from Shimla, have one more thing in common. They are all workers labouring under NREGA.

“Some work is better than no work,’’ said Ankit, a PhD from the prestigious Dr YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Solan. “And work is worship. Haven’t we been taught that? Moreover, I think all of us have another agenda in that NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) funds should keep flowing into our village and should never ever be returned unutilized.’’

Its time we wake up and do something about it…. its a TIME BOMB waiting to burst