Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Evolve job-oriented courses: Ponnaiyan

COIMBATORE, JAN. 10. Universities and colleges should offer courses that enable students to obtain a job as soon as they complete their studies, the Finance Minister, C. Ponnaiyan, said here today.

Inaugurating the Pearl Jubilee celebrations at the Kongunadu Arts and Science College, Mr. Ponnaiyan said that the erstwhile British rulers had encouraged arts courses in order to turn out clerical workers for revenue administration. Unfortunately, owing to "faulty educational policies", there had not been much emphasis on courses relating to science and technology even after Independence.

"Arts courses that have outlived utility are creating unemployment and social unrest in the middle class and among the weaker sections," he said.

"As a result of faulty economic planning, we have given importance to the secondary and tertiary sectors to the detriment of the primary sector that is responsible for the growth of the rural economy. We have to evolve academic programmes that are utility-oriented, so that graduates will be absorbed in one job or another," he noted.

Stressing the need to formulate syllabi that were based on the needs of society, he pointed out that free education that was not utility-oriented had increased joblessness. Society might one day have to pay a heavy price for creating such conditions.

"In the past, poor people tended to blame their fate, but the educated unemployed will start analysing things, probing issues and discovering inequalities that will create unrest and unwanted activities. The `haves' have not bothered about the `have-nots'. The situation today may not be serious, but things will change after about a decade," he said.

With 60 to 70 per cent of the economy dependent on the rural sector, farmers needed scientific guidance on growing the most suitable crops that could fetch the best returns on farm investment.

The "selfish and illegal approach" of Karnataka in expanding its irrigated area, combined with the effect of monsoon failure, had imperilled agriculture in Tamil Nadu. Farmers needed to increase farm productivity and switch to commercial cultivation of suitable crops on a scientific basis.

He observed that cotton yield in California was 7,000 kg of lint per hectare, compared to 400 kg of lint per hectare in Tamil Nadu. Low productivity had resulted in the textile sector turning sick, workers losing their jobs and cotton being procured from elsewhere at a time when the land was lying idle.

The rural economy could receive a massive boost if farmers in dry areas were to take up cultivation of `jatropha', a plant that could be used for producing bio-diesel.

With scientists having succeeded in isolating `glycerol' from the plant, a policy decision was likely to be evolved soon on providing the fatty content to self-help groups, for the manufacture of soap.

India should follow the example of its closest competitor, China, in combining human resource and innovative methods to produce low-cost, indigenous technology that could be put to profitable commercial use, he said.

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