Ever since the 1970s, when the post-WW2 job growth started to slow down, there has always been a debate as to whether university courses should be job-oriented. There are two standard arguments—while, businesses argue that universities should train students so that they are ready to enter the work force, some academics argue that the job of universities is not to do the job that businesses should do, i.e. train students in the specific processes required to do one job but rather train them generally so that they can pursue genuine academic interests and with a bit of tweaking and training, they can be ready to perform a wide variety of jobs.
At
least half a century has gone by since this debate started. It is pertinent to
note that those academics who argue for general academic training as opposed to
training specifically geared towards jobs are academics, i.e. meaningfully
employed. A vast majority of students are either unemployed or under-employed.
The
comedian Stewart Lee once wrote that while he was a student at Oxford studying
English, the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was on a visit to
Oxford and on meeting a student, asked her what she was studying. On hearing
that she was studying Norse literature, the neo-liberal Prime Minister is
supposed to have replied that it was a luxury.
While
studying the arts or social sciences or the natural sciences may not seem like
a luxury given the hard work that a serious student can put in, the number of
arts or social science or natural science graduates whose jobs have nothing to
do what they studied at university is far greater than those who used their
university education for academic ends.
Should
universities change tack? Instead of studying literature, should one be
studying technical writing or copywriting or editing or public relations or
mass communication or journalism? Instead of history, should one be studying
market research? Instead of philosophy, should the subject that is taught be
public relations or human resource management? Should physics and chemistry be
abandoned in favour of engineering or biochemistry? Zoology and physiology for
medicine or veterinarian training or training as a lab technician? Anthropology
and sociology for market research?
Academics
may be aghast at my suggestions. Yet, generations of students pass through the
arts or social sciences or the natural sciences at universities where there is
no structured one on one career counselling and no proper campus placement.
Each and every student is not accounted for by a career counsellor. Academics are
happy to turn a blind eye to this. They have a paid, respectable job with a
good work-life balance. They are like the old bishop in Oscar Wilde’s short
story ‘The Young King’, where the bishop in a cathedral tells the young king ‘The
burden of this world is too great for one man to bear, and the world's sorrow
too heavy for one heart to suffer’ and is swiftly reprimanded by the young king
who tells the bishop ‘Sayest thou that in this house?’ While stories such as
‘The Young King’ paint an optimistic view of the world and are a dangerous and
foolish precedent to follow in this world if it is not seen against pragmatism,
newspaper (and social media) opinion columns are as good a place to preach as
the pulpit (and stories).
‘Gross
enrolment ratio’ is a term often found in documents analysing the state of
education. An increasing ratio is tomtomed by politicians as an indicator of
the good that they have unleashed upon the world. In Shakespeare’s Tempest,
Caliban curses Prospero and says ‘red plague rid you/ For learning me your
language!’ WB Yeats, in his poem, ‘A Prayer for my Daughter’ remarks that ‘An
intellectual hatred is the worst’. Increasing education without adequate
employment is undeniably a curse. Doctorate applicants for the post of sweepers
are not an unheard-of phenomenon in India. Underemployment is far worse than
unemployment as it wastes the time of students who could have utilised those
years as an earner. Additionally, it embitters their heart as they feel they
have been led down the wrong path and gives rise to a kind of intellectual
hatred for jobs which they consider beneath them.
Something’s
got to give. In a world where we have overpopulation and a scarcity of jobs,
businesses are not going to spend money training someone for a year when there
is someone else with the necessary skills who has applied for the job. In this
neo-liberal world post the more socialist tendencies immediately following the
two world wars, businesses have not changed their policies in fifty years. The
education system has to change. The only issue is who will be courageous enough
to root out the entire system rather than making piecemeal changes such as
introducing vocational skills and skilling courses in higher education, when
all such courses are seen as subsidiary or additional minor courses and both
students and teachers see them as distractions from conventional coursework.
A
corollary issue is the poor quality of school education which renders most
higher education futile irrespective of what the course is or what is actually
being taught. Again, academics may see it as a broad generalisation but in their
heart of hearts both school teachers as well as teachers in higher education
know when they invigilate exams and hopefully try to prevent mass cheating and
give students the bare minimum pass marks in the hope that if the students are
failed in the exam in one year, the following year there will be additional
exam scripts to correct, they know that much of what they teach is futile.
In
order to improve the job prospects of students, school education must be
strengthened. This is an issue on which there is no debate. Everyone agrees
that it must be done. Throwing money at the problem won’t make it go away but
at least it will improve the situation. In India, money on education as a
percentage of GDP has never been thrown enough. Education has never been the
priority of any government given that more pressing needs such as food,
housing, electricity, roads and water have gotten priority. Graft, the top-most
attraction of a career in politics, has robbed the Indian GDP of several
percentage points which could otherwise have been diverted towards social good.
Economic lackeys of politicians often argue that money is money, be it black or
white, and what matters is the circulation of money, conveniently overlooking
the avenues in which that money is spent.
Caught
among a planet barely able to sustain the number of people breathing its air; businesses
not choosing to hire general graduates without the necessary skills given the large
surplus in qualified candidates and always finding someone to do their job; academics
who inhabit the proverbial ivory tower; and politicians who seize not only the
day but also the throat of the people whom they represent by depriving them of
social justice, opportunities and facilities; youngsters thrown into the world
and forced into the education system truly have a rough time.
What
about luxuries such as general arts or social science or natural science
courses? They may be treated as luxuries, for the highly motivated student from
school who can use that education to pursue an academic career, or who
knowingly chooses to survive as a poor scholar who will sacrifice a respectable
post-university career for the unknown travails of academia. Let luxury courses
be confined to a few elite academic institutions. Let those belonging to the
socio-economic bottom choose to join such courses fully aware of the career
path rather than signing up for them because they are the only ones available
by default and available more broadly.
Who
will teach the specific industry-oriented courses? Academics have to keep up
with an ever-changing syllabus. They have had the privilege of a good education
and have been lucky enough to bag a job. Let them tweak and re-orient
themselves to teach more job-oriented courses rather than asking students to re-orient
themselves after graduation. As for the luxury courses, those academics who are
fortunate enough to teach in elite institutions may continue teaching such
courses in the hope of a chimerical future where such teaching leads to
productive research.
Let
us end the fraud that is higher education as it exists. It is a mirage which
traps most of the travellers along the desert ruins of time. The right to
education should co-exist with the right to respectable employment. If
politicians in our kleptocracy can’t save enough money to throw at school
education, let them have the wisdom to modify higher education to make it
productive.
