The theme of International Youth
Day 2017 is Youth Building Peace.
There is growing recognition that as agents
of change, young people are critical actors in conflict prevention and
sustaining peace. In countries like India they also form a majority of the
population. As per census data of 2011, 41%
of India is below the age of 20. India is expected to have 34.33% share of
youth in total population by 2020. India’s economy may be growing more than
twice as fast as the rest of the world but the story on the jobs creation front
is just the opposite. Recent trends have shown India's growth story to be
slowing down with India's rate of employment declining and creation of jobs not
keeping up with the growing working age population.
As per the Chief Statistician of
India, Prof. T.C.A. Anant, in the foreword of a report on Youth in India 2017
produced by the Central Statistics Office- Youth of the nation are the trustees of prosperity. But where are
the mechanisms to invest in the futures of those trustees? What legacy are we
leaving them to build prosperity from in terms of resources and life
options? Can there be peace without
prosperity? Can something be built out of nothing? Does the promise of
potential suffice as the building blocks for a nation’s future? Currently, more
than 30% of Indians ages 15-29 are
neither in employment nor in education or training.
Education is seen as central to development and to the improvement
of lives. Census data has revealed, only 4.5%
of the population in the country is educated
up to the level of graduate or above while a majority of 32.6% population is not even educated up to the primary school
level. Despite significant improvements in increasing primary school enrolment
in parts, the MDG of achieving universal primary level education by 2015 could
not be achieved. There also has been no concerted effort to transition further
into secondary education, and vocational or technical training either of a
formal or non-formal nature leading up to a smooth entry into the job market.
The failure of the system is more
pronounced for young girls and women. In a country where roughly 48.5% of the
population is female and 51.5% is male, not only is the skewed gender balance
obvious the level of neglect of the female population is an active indication
of its future. As per the Indian Human Development Survey, the literacy rate
has continued to climb to 73% in 2011 Census; however, the gender gap has only
narrowed slightly, with women still at literacy levels 16% below men. Literacy
rates among youths age 15-24 were higher still, at 81% in 2005-2008, yet a 14%
gender gap remained
Human resource potential of individuals reaches its peak in youth. So
then why is unemployment rife? Why is illiteracy rampant? Why is there still a
gender disparity not just in education but also in employment? Why is skill
development in our country lacking in quality and competence? Why is investment
in scientific and academic research dropping alarmingly? Why the jhumlas, the
marketing hype and the light and sound shows around skill development and
social entrepreneurship when there is no plan in play neither for employment of
the skilled or newly trained nor for promotion of self-employment? Why is there
no focus on technical and scientific capacity building which is what the country needs
more to shed the skin of being a developing country and metamorphose into a
developed nation?
How many housekeeping staff,
computer operators, carpenters, solar installers, tailors, machinists,
refrigeration technicians, welders, electricians, automobile and appliance
repairmen, fitters, bar-benders, security, plumbers, salesmen, beauticians and
manicurists do we need to train without gainfully employing them? What is the
quality of short term training certificate courses that last from 50-350 hours
providing minimal exposure, experience and access to employment? What
mechanisms are in place to ensure training partners perform with due diligence.
As per the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship website, PMKVY
envisages to link the aptitude, aspiration, and knowledge of the skilled
workforce it creates with employment opportunities and demands in the market.
Every effort thereby needs to be
made by the PMKVY to provide placement opportunities to candidates, trained and
certified under the Scheme, though till now there is no clarity on how they are
going to go about doing it. Training partners shall also provide support to
entrepreneurship development as per the Ministry's Placement Guidelines. The
question remains whose job is it to create the jobs for the inadequately
trained? What sort of support is provided for entrepreneurship development?
What environment is created conducive to mass hiring of these candidates by
industry?
There is still a lack of clarity
on exactly how many have secured jobs through PMKVY and their training partners
and conflicting reports show that half of all trained landed jobs and others
state far less have been placed through training partners and many remain
gainfully unemployed. Now that these conflicting messages are out about
potential fraud enrolments, botched figures and poor facilities, and placements
the focus seems to have shifted to self-employment and entrepreneurship. Supposedly
it would be easier to distort facts and figures and assume everyone is employed
if it operates under the garb of mainly entrepreneurship focussed training and
the onus is on training partners.
Personal experience has shown that
some training partners maybe fly by night operators sub-contracting the work to
other agencies reducing credibility, increasing fake enrolments, faking facilities
and capacity and documentation. If the scheme is genuine in its desire then it
needs to review and evaluate the performance of Training Partners to ensure
quality in terms of input and output and ensure they do not sub-contract the
work and have the competence to carry out the agreed works, if not the chances
of public unrest in days to come will be high.
The current generation of youth
are the largest in history and young people often comprise the majority in
countries marked by armed conflict or unrest, therefore considering the needs and aspirations of youth in matters of peace
and security is a demographic imperative.
Creating employment is essential to national health and raising those
aspirations, so assuming a certificate guarantees they are all trained and that
they can just take to entrepreneurship without financial assistance, adequate
experience and support without access to a job is unrealistic. Can you as
corporates be active partners in turning this situation around and encouraging
employment, education, experience and esteem in youth?
World Bank has identified the
exercise of active citizenship as
one of the most important activities for a healthy transition to adulthood for
both the youth of today and the next generation. The focus on youth civic
engagement is driven in part by the assumption that young people if involved in
and connected to society are less likely to engage in risky behavior and
violence. Genuine CSOs have a crucial role to play in that area, the growing
violence and incidents of unrest in parts of the country under various banners
is the collective expression of angst that could be directed to affirmative
action with adequate engagement by companies and local government through formal
public private partnerships with CSOs and not-for-profits.
However in India CSOs and
not-for-profits are being branded, monitored, and harangued and shut down for
fear that their work for a better civic society might lead to exposure of the
Governments inadequacies and inefficiencies. CSOs at grassroots level today are
struggling to make ends meet, unless of course they are the big ones dependent
on government funding, internationally funded or are affiliated to government
or have been set up by ex-government officials or god-men. Giving youth a sense
of self-worth, of identity, of belonging, of ambition, of achievement and of
participation is as essential as giving them an education, employment or 3 meals
a day.
What role can corporates play in
actively supporting the development of CSOs and not for profits that work with
and for youth engagement grassroots initiatives? By CSOs and not-for-profits we
do not mean the large foundations set up by some corporate houses to siphon off
CSR funds, or ones set up to build
schools, toilets, libraries hospitals and other infrastructure in areas
just where their work impacts the public and the environment as a face saving
PR measure, or supporting Government affiliated large CSOs and not for profits
that again can take funds in bulk but often lead to the gripe among corporates
that CSOs and not for profits lack accountability, responsibility and
impact.
Infrastructure is important but not as important as impact. For
e.g.: You could set up a library but if there is no teacher to instruct in
reading, there are no children capable of reading, there is not method to the madness the impact
is lost. Running events with inflated costing to write off as CSR expenditure
like CSR awards, NGO awards, Excellence awards, cultural programs tied up with
big named NGOs or Government affiliated organizations, and celebrities to
endorse them or throwing funds generously into Government sanctioned schemes
and media campaigns that lack credibility and accountability again does not at
the ground level impact or improve the condition of the environment and our
youth.
Invest wisely in the future of
this country, for its youth are your potential customer base. They are its’
back bone; they are your potential employees. Provide opportunities to reap the
benefit of the youth boom in the near future. Another reason for adequately
investing not just in employment, experience, research and education is migration. Young
people often move within their home countries as internal migrants or beyond
their national borders as international migrants in search of opportunities. The majority of migrants stay
in their own countries as internal migrants. However, as the socio-economic and
political dynamics change, skilled labor and technical people move where the
opportunities are in terms of a better quality of life, pay, health care, security, etc. Skilled labor may fare well, but for unskilled labor which still constitutes the majority of our population the situation might be dire.
National level unrest often has led
to mass migrations to other countries which result in not just a brain drain
and skill deficit in the affected countries but also cause deprivation to
economy and industry for want of quality people. Unskilled labor often suffer the most in terms of exploitation in other countries and even in their own. Mass migrations will severely cripple the skill base that keeps this country running. It is an adequate reminder that if Climate Change is not
tackled, as a result of famines, droughts, disease, etc., unemployment, and
poverty will escalate in the coming decade we are very likely to see the
growth of unrest especially in youth which may lead to migrations or crisis.
The point of this write up is not
to rant about the inefficiency of misplaced adventurism that passes for
ill-conceived and rejigged government schemes and/or siphoning of funds into
closely affiliated entities without accountability or to scare readers on the
doomsday scene we are already building as a narrative for our future with respect to climate change, but
rather to get corporates to think about how they can possibly contribute to
pro-actively create a fail-safe mechanism to rejuvenate the corroded system for
the betterment of not just the nation and its youth but also for their own organizational
growth. It is about envisioning the value of our youth collective, empowering them and investing in a sustainable carbon neutral climate resilient future.
