Reimeingam Marchang
Khanrin, TKLD, Dec 2004-Feb 2005
Every old year leaves with despairs for many and joy for few, and comes a new year with great hopes for everyone. Educating and motivating for prosperity through learning is widespread yet education remains a dream for large section of the society. It is a known fact that education is for generation of income to support living as well as for better welfare of society. Education is a means of development of morality and personality, accumulation of knowledge and skills, for employability in the competitive tight labour market, etc. It was imparted in one or other form for the development and betterment of human race irrespective of the civilization throughout the human generations. Inevitably, much before the birth of western education, in our society education could have been imparted although not through a written form. With the introduction of western education the importance of it has increased tremendously especially for job.
At present education is considered as the most necessary commodity; therefore educational attainment is ever rising irrespective of the family income level. This is contributed by the interest of the parents who were given and are in turn giving ‘hard efforts’ to afford their children to learn and to compete the already learned counterparts.
For the poor the opportunity costs of acquiring education is much higher than for the affluent people because each year of education foregoes the expected earnings. However, with little understanding of this reason the poor are continuing their studies just for the sake of study without any future application until heavy economic pressure start exerted. This is due to the highly subsidized higher education. This is the government’s policy to curb educated unemployment in a short run. In the long run the booming educated youth unemployed will be destructive in nature, affecting the supposedly peaceful system. They are mostly voluntarily unemployed because of the non-offering of wages suitable/equivalent with their educational attainment. The educated are the most dangerous species for the society. From the economic point of view their non-contribution is of great lost in terms of production for the nation. They form wastage of income.
The less productive employees continue to hold the prestigious post enjoying the leisure in the classy office without paying much attention to availability of higher productive people if employed as their substitution. The employers contend that the freshers are less competent and inexperienced to execute the task. However, if given the chance the situation is likely to turn up side down.
Job seekers are quite informative about the scarcity of vacant organized jobs in which extra qualification becomes necessary condition in search of job. However, knowledge about the demand for the types of education like ‘professional’ and ‘managerial’ is confused. On the other side the jobbers are highly aware of the situation of the over supply of the overqualified job seekers, which enhances jobbers bargaining power of wage particularly in the private sector. In the present situation the job seekers’ bargaining power is dwindling due to the increasing number of qualified applicants. Similarly people who possess higher educational qualification have advantages in seeking employment in the government sector. This suggest that gone are the days where expected earning rises with the increases in the level of education. But in many cases higher qualification is by and large a contributing factor for getting employment. This induces to the growth of demand for higher educational level further.
In exploring the possible means for all the educated to be employed the commonly called self-employment is the only way. Educated unemployment schemes are in abundance but in reality meagre and not viable for execution. But it is constrained by many factors including for instance the amount, terms and delivery norms of the scheme(s) of finance. It can be argued that entering in the job market could have had much-yielded beneficial rather than acquiring higher education in the past, had the present tight labour market been foreseen. However, one should keep in mind that education is not only for entering in the salaried job market. Because the little education which the earlier generation has acquired propels the present generation to acquire higher than them so as to develop and realize our rich heritage, culture, values, etc. The earlier generations learn from others (westerners/foreigners) but now, isn’t the time ripe to teach the westerners? It all depends on our wisdom of how we educate them in return as a tribute – not for pride, but as a gift.
The decline of job vacancies in the labour market and the increase of demand for higher education tend to stagnate the growth of employment. Meanwhile educated people are being flooded for which the society will face a serious repercussion in the long run. This trend is what our (Tangkhul) society is experiencing today. It will not be incorrect to assume that almost all the matured-people of our community in Delhi are educated. While, about half of this population is presumably a graduate or equivalent and/or above, out of this many are continuing studies because their desired type of job, which is suitable or commensurate with their acquired educational qualification, is yet to be found. In reality this situation permits the many student or employee to simultaneously work or study as part-timer.
It is also threatening that the pace of getting employment, particularly salaried, is sluggish, and the rate is in fact insignificant. Continuing at this rate of employment will take innumerable years to accommodate the whole present educated unemployed, even if new educated personnel are not added annually. The implication of this trend for the future is ironical because large army of the educated unemployed would revolt and transmit anti-governmental policies which is in fact undesirable in the face of the government’s policies of luring with incentives and schemes.
It is note worthy that education attainment has increased considerably among the Tangkhuls in Delhi in particular but facing the hardship of finding job in the tough competitive labour market. Here it may be suggested that education be acquired on the basis of quality and quantity of job available or likely to be available.
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For
citation: Marchang Reimeingam, Climbing the Ladder of Education:
An Employment Perspective, Khanrin, TKLD,
Delhi, Dec 2004-Feb 2005.
