‘The habit of listening should be developed within all the individuals for better growth in career and as a person’, Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam had written in his book, ‘Wings of Fire’. After attending a recent seminar at college, I realized that listening was indeed a difficult task and that all of us should work to develop the skill. Apart from gaining information and knowledge, sometimes people also realise certain things while listening intently.
A few days back while I was listening to a laudable speaker I became aware of the importance of certain issues that I had known earlier but it had never provoked me to think of them. This realization turned out to fascinate me and provoke me into writing this article. The speaker mainly spoke of how youngsters did not realize the value of the priceless gifts that God gave – an intact body, a strong mind and valuable time. Referring to the lives of Stephen Hawking and Nick Vujicic, he reminded to us that we were free of any bodily restriction and that we had to use our mind in the best way possible without wasting any of the precious time that was predisposed to us.
Apart from the gifts that we already possess, Col.Ramulu, the guest speaker spoke of the constant complaints that the youth today made with regard to the lack of jobs. This statement took me to the recent ‘Pakoda Controversy’ that the newspapers and the news channels in our country spoke of, day in and day out for a good number of days. Before going any further about what Col.Ramulu spoke of we should probably go through some statistics.
At present, there are over 1 lac jobs that are vacant under the Central Government. Apart from this, there are also job openings every now and then for various banks. A number of private companies also contribute to job creation in India. The division of vacancies under various central government sectors can be seen on https://www.ncs.gov.in/Pages/default.aspx
Hence, one conclusion that can be made is that there are jobs but unemployment is still a growing issue in the country. Our country is in a situation where even after having completed graduation and post-graduation, people do not have jobs. Now, this is an issue of major concern. Instead of blaming the government and politicising the issue, we need to understand as to why we are facing the problem. The number of job vacancies that are already there could not be sufficient given to the vast population of the country. But then is population the only reason? I don’t think so.
Lack of Skills:
By now it can be clearly understood that having a degree is not sufficient to get a job. There is a possibility that the job seekers lack the essential skills that could earn a job for them.
In one of the episodes of ‘Daily News Analysis’, Mr.Sudhir Choudhary, while speaking of the worst conditions of unemployment, refers to a situation in Uttar Pradesh, where a group of young graduates, postgraduates and engineers were cleaning a drainage as a part of the physical test for a job in the municipality. A bunch of youngsters educated in the field of arts, science and technology could surely have come up with a system to clean the drainages mechanically rather than manually. But that wasn’t the case. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7kXtlQq0Yk
Education System:
Developing particular skills starts from educational institutions. Since childhood, the number of career options that we are aware of is quite a few. We grow up with people talking of a career as an engineer and if you are willing enough to be patient, you can opt for medicine or Chartered Accountancy too. If you are more concerned about job security, you should probably write Government Recruitment tests. Over the recent years, MBA, fashion designing, journalism, Youtubing etc has started to gain recognition. Even today there are so many career options we are not aware of. How can skills be developed without knowing what interests a person? Most of us follow or are made to follow the paths that have already been taken. Most of us do not even make an effort to explore to make a choice from the thousands of options that we have.
Lack of Focus:
If you are lucky enough to have found your interest and passion and yet you cannot find a job for yourself, you need to think seriously and start focussing on achieving your goals.
In an interview, when asked about the unemployment issue prevailing in India, Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam had said that ‘the youth in India should become job providers and not job seekers.’ With the above-mentioned problems, it can get difficult to motivate the youth to develop entrepreneurial skills.
Sadly, media today has emphasized more on broadcasting who blames whom for the situation we are in, rather than trying to educate people of the reasons and possible solutions for such a situation. Media has the power and capability to educate the people and influence them to change their perspectives.
At the end of the day, by blaming the government the problem shall not fade away. It is the need of the hour that people learn to become independent and hunt for what their true passion and interests are rather than deciding on what shall get them a high-paid job or an easily- achievable job.
From what Col.Ramulu spoke, one thing that I could conclude is, make yourself so efficient that the jobs come to your doorstep instead of you running after them.
