The COVID 19 virus hit our nation at the beginning of this year. More than the pain of disease, people were scared because of the rumours. People leaving away from homes rushed back to their native places. Everything went into lockdown. Shops, industries, hotels, colleges, malls, talkies everything was shut down by the end of March.
March passed, April passed and now everybody’s savings were coming to an end. Everybody was asking for unlocking. At this crucial time, what Indian youth was doing? Most of them were stuck in their houses. Those who were in the IT industry were getting used to the new normal of WFH. Those who were working in other industries lost their jobs as the company was at loss. A renowned newspaper said around 12.2 crore Indians lost their jobs during this pandemic. Now as all the sectors were at loss, Indian economy took a big downfall. GDP went down drastically. Industries cut down no.of employees just to survive.
So without totally blaming this pandemic, let’s see who lost the job. Unskilled workers, employees who didn’t update themselves with the world, who were working at the higher position but adding very less to company’s value and finally the automation. Humans thought it a smart move to discover robots and AI. But this is the same technology which is simply taking their jobs away.
The most basic thing our education system lacks is skills. Our education system never focuses on student’s skills. Right from the school days, students are forced to study in a particular direction. Hobbies and passions are buried in their heart. So these students left without a choice choose a particular stream of education. They go against their heart but still study hard to complete the education they are supposed to. But is this education really valuable? I really don’t think so. Our education system totally focuses on theory and no practical knowledge. Students are kept busy with assignments, exams during the course. These students when passing out, they join an industry where they will need only practical knowledge with very little help of theory knowledge. Companies recruit them testing their theory knowledge assuming they have practical knowledge. But in reality, it’s not true. When a student becomes an employee, he struggles to do the work. During the whole education years, skills were totally ignored but now skills were the need of the hour. But students coming out of such an education system fails to meet the skill requirements but somehow stick to the company. But when such an extraordinary situation like this pandemic happens, these people lose their jobs. This loop won’t end until we bring some serious changes to our education system. We need to include more practical knowledge and less theory portion to make students actually eligible for the industry.
India is called as the agriculture-oriented country where most of the people have agriculture as their occupation. But are we counting youth in it? Surely not. Because we have created a pale image of the agriculture industry in front of the youth. During this pandemic, agriculture was the only sector with a positive GDP in India. But still very few youths take agriculture as a career. If this unemployed youth turns into a farmer, use their brain, new technology and ideas in agriculture, just imagine how our agriculture sector will grow in a few years. We need to put forward the glamorous side of agriculture and actually make the nation prominent in the world of agriculture, with our youth driving it.