In an article in the Sentinel newspaper of Assam, chairman of Co-ordination Committee Dimapur, Educated Unemployed Union Nagaland (CCEUDD) Temsumongba Sanglir informed that according to statistics reported by the Employment Exchange, there are 55,000 registered ‘unemployed’ persons in Nagaland. But he further explains that the actual unemployment figures could be more than that because there will be many people who have not registered themselves.
But before we further look into that, let us take a little detour in the history of Education and educational reforms in India since 1947. Before Independence education was bequeathed only to a select few of Indian society- the upper class. The British did enforce strict regulations but their main goal had been to make Indians who were “English in tastes, in opinion, in morals and in intellect.” A sad reality is that post-independence, the challenges and difficulties that a new and young nation faced, already wounded by the creation of Pakistan, sadly sidelined education. But the disparities in education then had already been huge- it stretched between the rich and the poor, women and men, the backward and privileged castes. Literacy in the country was a low 12% and enrollment in schools had averaged 40%. The limited access to schools also meant that education in India was more or less an inherited trait. A report of the Education Commission in 1954 said- “violent revolution” and chaos during India’s economic development could be prevented by only one thing: education.
But this was not an easy task for India’s legislators to propose a single, coherent education system, thanks to regional divides. Hindi could not be imposed as an official language and our resentments from Colonization made it hard to assume English as its alternative. Delhi’s focus on education and literacy became more difficult when the states were allowed to teach in regional languages in their schools. After a long battle where states like Gujarat banned English from primary schools and West Bengal did the same too in the 1970s or even considering the North and South bitter debate of ‘Hindi-influence’ and English being dragged in for compensation, perhaps somewhere we’re seeing some progress after the long night’s battle. The middle-class is rising and in this way, people recognize the advantages of education. Here, perhaps that would be English-education. But it is not altogether a negative thing because English is the lingua franca of the world, thanks to colonization’s influence but the world market responds to English as a trade-language even.
The Dalits saw English as a language exempt from the restrictive conventions of Indian literature, which also imbued with traditions of caste and untouchability. But rural “upper” castes considered the idea of “lower” castes learning to read texts- especially religious texts- as sacrilegious, specially pronounced in the north and east of the country. This way of thinking prevailed even up to the 70’s while dropouts among backward caste students were especially high in schools. The lower class of society were unfortunately exploited too by Zamindars and landlords who also protested about educating them saying it would create unreasonable expectations for better jobs and empowerment among the backward castes of society. In the book, “Imagining India” by Nandan Nilekani, sociologist and writer André Béteille, says caste divides influenced sometimes state investments, “Ministers catered to their particular caste groups, so you saw government schools being built in specific community areas which ‘outside castes’ could not access.” As a result half the OBC and ST villages in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh do not have a single school. But the government couldn’t do much either because the political support they derived in rural India during the 1950’s and 1960’s were primarily from these large landowners and jotdars.
Sendhil Mullainathan, Harvard economist tells Nilekani, “Few of us can comprehend the day-to-day tragedy that the poorest people face. You have a limited daily wage, and your choice lies between everyday, urgent needs versus spending money on school books and uniforms to send your child to school. That’s not an easy call.” Many unorganized industries in India hire child workers as young as three years old. These unorganized industries are bangle, glassware, matchsticks, fireworks, garment factories.
Through 1960’s and 1970’s, the focus of governments in school education was on building infrastructure, with little emphasis on teacher’s training, educational achievements and performance measurement. As a result the total number of illiterates continued to grow, even as states haplessly built school after ineffective school. One significant definition of Indian education is that everyone but the poorest and the most illiterate parents have abandoned our government schools. 90 % of the public expenditure in Indian schools is on the salaries of the teachers and administration. And yet we have the highest rates of teacher truancy in the world- across our state schools, teachers simply do not turn up, and one in four government teachers is absent on any given day. Further statistical report states that 80% of government-school teachers send their own children to private schools. While Government employees were guilty of distancing themselves from state and municipal schools and in its place “Central” schools were set up for children of central government civil servants, and Sainik schools for children of military personnel.
A reality of our institutional reform has been through the outcome of pressure from the middle and educated class. The middle class often, have both numbers and public voice in their favor and their participation in India’s education system is critical in maintaining education and teaching standards. States in the south succeeded in making progress in school education by addressing the challenges of educating poor students head-on. Today, only six states of India account for two thirds of its children out of school- Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Teacher’s unions in India have held remarkable political power at the state level and have grown rapidly over the years as an organized influence. But sometimes it has not reached the intended group in cases of corrupt legislators such as Om Prakash Sharma, teacher and member of Legislative Council of Uttar Pradesh.
China, our neighbor, during Mao’s rule he pitched education as central to creating “new men” motivated and fully literate in the party ideology. In East Asia, the Confucian ethic emphasized the need for education, and literacy was a necessary virtue for the deeply religious. In the small island country of Sri Lanka, the Buddhists were a strong force in encouraging literacy and education.
Facts about Nagaland:
The literacy rate in Nagaland is 83% which is much higher than the national average. Teacher-pupil ratio is also very encouraging- average being 27 in primary schools against the national average of 42. But drop-outs rates are relatively high. North-east of India is quite fortunate in that way as it had less issues with regional divides, or caste system. Also with Christianity’s influence adapting to English as a form of education was easier for us.
Statistical reports say that the educated unemployed in 1991 was 22,069. Then in 2000 it was 37,090 with an increase of 68.06 % (taking 1991 as a base). By 2006 we had rose to 40,960, with an increase of 126.38 % increase (taking 1991 as a base). The state had 10,534 Educated unemployed in 1991, whose figures rose to 22,119 in 2000 which by 2006 had further risen to 31,277.
My concluding questions from a brief observation are these:
- Is there a solution?
- Do we all need to be educated?
- What does education give to society?
- And finally, what could society do without? Could it do without educated unemployed people?
