The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ‘Unemployability’ is a bigger crisis than unemployment, says Kalam

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‘Unemployability’ is a bigger crisis than unemployment, says Kalam

Special Correspondent

‘Structural changes in education system needed to address skill deficit’

– Photo: V Sreenivasa Murthy

An honour: Governor Rameshwar Thakur and Vice-Chancellor of Bangalore University H.A. Ranganath with freedom fighter G. Narayana, Chief Justice the Supreme Court K.G. Balakrishnan, former Vice-Chancellor of Bangalore University T.R. Jayaraman and former Director of the Indian Institute of Science Goverdhan Mehta at the convocation of Bangalore University on Saturday.

BANGALORE: Former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on Saturday said that “unemployability” of a majority of Indian youth, which was a result of skill deficit, was a bigger crisis than unemployment itself.

“It is not unemployment, which is a major problem; it is the question of ‘unemployability’, which is a bigger crisis,” Dr. Kalam said while addressing the 43rd convocation of Bangalore University in Bangalore in which he shared his thoughts on “mission in life”.

He called for immediate steps such as structural changes in the education system to address skill deficit to tackle the issue of “unemployability”. “Skill deficit among our youth is the most important issue to be addressed on priority than the country’s infrastructure deficit,” he said.

Citing the India Labour Report 2007, Dr. Kalam said 53 per cent of employed youth suffered some degree of skill deprivation, while only 8 per cent were unemployed. In all, 57 per cent of India’s youth suffered from some degree of “unemployability”.

He said 90 per cent of employment opportunities required vocational skills. But 90 per cent of the country’s college and school output did not have adequate practical knowledge for joining work. Only 7 per cent of the population in the 15 to 29 age group had received some form of vocational training.

Unless basic principles were integrated into the systems and specific strategies were set to raise the employability of the growing workforce, skill deficit would put brakes on the country’s growth.

Repairing this skill deficit may need 6 to 8 per cent of the GDP (Rs. 4,80,000 crore) over two years, he said. Besides, the unfinished product from the education system would be vulnerable to anti-social tendencies, he said.

Dr. Kalam said the Indian education system pyramid had to be based on strong and vibrant school education supported by refined higher education.

This would help in improving the quality of output from the school system, which in turn would become the quality input to the higher education system, which would ultimately deliver a finished product for building knowledge society.

He said universities and institutions should create global cadres of youth with special skills and those with higher education for powering not only Indian manufacturing and services sector, but also that of various countries. “The rest of our youth, who are not covered by the higher education system, should have world class skills in other areas, varying from construction and carpentry to fashion design and software and hardware maintenance.” He urged the education system to ensure that no Indian youth was without either world class higher education or world class skills.

“Our education system should not simply produce the clones of individuals who pass through the conventional system of examination based on the standard system of question and answer pattern.

Instead, it should bring out the best from every individual in all disciplines to make the nation great.

It should also concentrate on producing quality human resource with ability to innovate to meet the needs of the industry for competing in the international market,” he said.

He stressed the need for empowering university and their affiliated colleges with autonomy and adequate funds to transform them into world class institutions.

Honorary doctorates

Honorary doctorates were conferred on Chief Justice of the Supreme Court K.G. Balakrishnan, freedom fighter and former Kannada Sahitya Parishat Chairman G. Narayana, former Director of the Indian Institute of Science Goverdhan Mehta and retired bureaucrat T.R. Jayaraman.

Mr. Balakrishnan was honoured with Doctor of Laws, while Mr. Narayana and Mr. Jayaraman were given D. Lit degrees.

Dr. Mehta was given Doctor of Science degree.

Krupa A. of the Centre for Kannada Studies and H.S. Chaithra of the Department of Chemistry bagged nine gold medals each at the PG level.

Similarly, Arundhuti Gupta (B.Com.) from Mount Carmel College and K. Sriharsha (B.E.) of the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering bagged eight gold medals each at the graduation level.

Doctorates were given to 177 people from various disciplines and gold medals to 160.

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