Why is India Jobless?

Today I was waiting for our college principal to sign my request letter to get my 10th Grade Marks Card for the passport. Yes, our college keeps our 10th and 12th Grade mark sheet so that we don’t leave college without their permission or their knowledge. We will get there soon, this blog is not about that. So while I was waiting I spoke to a few other college students who were waiting for their first round AMAZON placements results.

There were many students from different colleges because it was campus pool placement. So when I was talking to these people, It surprised me how they were struggling to get a job offer. They were college pass out, still didn’t have any offer letter from any company.

Now let’s get to the point, why are our “ENGINEER” graduates or for the matter of fact any graduate of 21st Century JOBLESS in INDIA?

Are there no jobs in India?

There are so many startups currently India than ever before. Still, our youth is not employed?
There are so many government projects going on Still, our youth is not employed?
There are 70k+ job openings every year all around the world still, our youth is not employed?

It’s because our Engineering graduates are just NOT EMPLOYABLE. PERIOD.
They don’t have employable skills. Who should be blamed for this?

Society? College? Government? Student?

Let’s get to each one of them Individually.

Society:

We have tied jobs with our PRIDE and EGO!

Working in an AC office is much more important than how much your getting paid for working there.

Working for big MNC at high post is more important to get married than doing what you like.

Getting a NAUKAR-i (job) is more important than creating your company or having your own franchise.

Why there is no Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates from India?
Because at age 19 Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, at an age of 19 Steve Jobs travelled to India for spiritual enlightenment and then at 20 he creates APPLE 1 with Steve Wozniak, at age 19 Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to create Microsoft.

What are our Indian students doing at the same age?

Preparing for JEE! Why? Because IIT will make you Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Don’t get me wrong. For many, it has worked out this way.

What I am trying to tell here is the mindset of the students. Those people had such strong will power to take such a risk and their country Education system and family supported them too. (Students can take a break from education and do something of their own and resume their education from next academic year, there is no SHAME in doing that.)

Here the first question your parents will ask is, what will we answer people if they ask what is our kid doing?

Our current education system made NAUKARS (Slaves) for Britishers. That’s why we call it NAUKARI (Job) in Hindi. At that time of poverty, working for the Royal Family was considered a sense of pride and got them a good amount of money too.

We got to change this mindset first!

College:

It is supposed to be a place where students are bursting with Ideas, Research works, talking about Revolutions, helping bring change to society by solving key problems we are facing, Innovating each day, putting blood sweat and tears in building your dream company.

But sadly, It has become a place where we go to get that one CERTIFICATE and to get that maintaining 85% attendance.

According to me, parents who wanted their kids to do Engineering or Medical knew that -

“I have to force my kid for just 12 years, after that 85% attendance policy is there to take over from there”

It really doesn’t matter if you’re mentally present and listening to class, but yes we have to be physically present!

Here is the first step towards FUTURE ROBOTS creation! Congratulations to Parents and College, it really worked out for both of you.
But but but…. what about the student?

The student has lost all his confidence by the end of 4 years of course.
All this time while you kept your kids deprived of YouTube, Netflix, TV, Sports, Parties, etc because they had to prepare for their “LIFE Changing” entrance exams (without asking them if they wanted to, in the first place). During 4 years course, they sit in their dorm rooms and binge watch all of them, one after the other, every day finishing 1 season at a time.

Many teachers make students stand in the class if they fall asleep during their class. Here is a question to teachers, did you fall asleep while watching your favourite movie? What if you went to an ultra-flop movie and you fell asleep during the movie and someone made you stand and watch the whole movie? How would you feel?

I know I am comparing lectures to movies. Lectures are supposed to be interesting, entertaining, a lot of discussions, a lot of conclusions to draw from. If you’re not able to add these attributes in your lecture, it’s not completely students fault. I have attended classes where lectures were worth attending, not because of the subject but because of the Teacher who made those boring subject also interesting.

When we are talking about developing employable skills in college, where is the college actually providing space for it?

You take any god damn job in this world, your employer is looking for the following skills:
1. Good Communication
2. Problem Solving Skills
3. Time Management

I have interacted with so many students in Karnataka due to my initiative “Buzy Coders Camp”.

Even when you ask them to talk or ask questions, they won’t.

Because most of the teachers don’t even encourage asking questions during class. They are just used to this now.

How will they develop communication skills Sir/Ma’am? When each day you're destroying their confidence one day at a time by asking them to “Keep quiet”, “Don’t ask stupid questions”, “Meet me after the class” or by just personally attacking them because you couldn’t answer a question they asked.

Problems are solved by asking questions it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad.

We are destroying a student’s creativity in 4 years and during placements we are asking them to BE CREATIVE.

According to the university rules, a student has to do at least one industrial internship. Where are you giving time for this? Students barely get a holiday for 2–3 weeks. Which company will provide them with an Internship for 2–3 weeks?

The jobs existing in today’s market didn’t exist 5 years back. Whereas our course structure is 20 years old. Where are we giving time for students to develop skills for the present market? Why are students who are putting in extra effort into learning these skills not encouraged equally to a student who is securing 8+ CGPA?

Being a Teacher is one of the holiest profession. You’re not teaching a subject, you’re building characters, you’re building future of the country.

It deserves more respect than it gets. Trust me, If tomorrow your student gets successful and start setting examples for others, s/he is definitely going to give credit to that one life-changing teacher. Be that life-changing teacher.

Government:

I am just going to copy-paste one of the answers I read on Quora by Rajan Singh — Ex-IPS, IITian, Wharton MBA, CEO ConceptOwl

As a society, we love shortcuts and being lazy. Before the private college explosion the B.Tech degree meant something. It was hard to get into an engineering college, but it was respected and only good students could get in.

Then one day, some genius(es) decided that if B.Tech is so good, why don’t we make everyone a B.Tech? We totally forgot that B.Tech was valued because we screened and selected good students, and also gave them a somewhat decent education (we could debate that, though).

So now everything became an engineering college. Random empty buildings and vocational training centers also became engineering colleges. Politicians looking for respectability, and businessmen looking to park their money became Engineering College owners! Most of these pioneers of technical education themselves never got any decent education. And we created this monster called ‘management quota’, which meant pay money and get a piece of paper which says ‘B.Tech’.

In the process, we destroyed the B.Tech brand. We further showed the world that our engineering colleges are absolute crap. And you can’t trust us as a country. Our degrees are meaningless, and take it seriously only at your own peril.

We also did injustice to these hapless students. Many of them are not interested in anything, but there are a few gems hidden in this crowd. We put them through the most depressing intellectual environment, and most come out of it with their confidence gone.

The AICTE colluded in this destruction and people made money. They must have retired happily and built nice houses, and conducted lavish marriages for their children in high society.

So what should we do now?

Stop. Pull the plug. Shut down 80% of these private engineering colleges.

Complete Answer here: Link

Student:

First, figure out what you want to do. Simple.

If you don’t know, take a break from the flow and try different things and then take a decision of which college you have to go or which field you want to choose. Give yourself a good reason to choose that stream and don’t settle anything below top 5 best options in any field. If you don’t make it in the first try, try again.

If you can’t afford following what you want to do, create a path to get there.

You don’t have to catch a direct train always, you can change the train at the junction as well. But don't take the wrong train which won’t drop you at the junction which will get you to the dream destination.

Don’t give a reason that your parents or family won’t agree. Consider them as your first client to your dream project, you have to get them on board to make your dream successful. You have to do everything in your power to convince them and you yourself are the best salesman for this job because you know them the most and for a long time.

If you couldn’t convince your parents about your dream, how are you going to convince the world that YOU’RE WORTH IT?

Many students come and complain to me how them being from 3rd tier college doesn’t help them in getting a deserving role or salary.

I tell them this simple thing, change starts from you. Stop sitting in those interviews where their roles and salary doesn’t justify the skills you possess. Yes, I know it’s easier said than it’s done.

But you have to push yourself out of the comfort zone to get what you deserve, there are many examples of the students who were from 3rd Tier college and could make it into companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc and also got into universities like Stanford and Ivy Leagues. Just Google them and how they got there.

If you don’t have the skills to get there, stop wasting time and helping companies like Facebook, Netflix, PUBG earn from your time.

Invest in yourself. Make yourself a better person than you were yesterday.
Don’t compete with others, compete with yourself.

When you’re competing with others, you’re chasing that person’s goal not your own.

There is no right time or right place to start, just START from wherever you are. Trust me, It’s worth it. The feeling is addictive once you see yourself grow. Don’t blame your situation or environment for not being supportive. Don’t complain about it, find solutions to deal with it. You have to define your own path. It’s fine if you’re a little late reaching there, but don’t give up.

Yuvraj Singh started playing for India before MS Dhoni, even though they were of same age group. But MS Dhoni is still playing for India now.

Everything I wrote above is the experiences I have had as a student as well as a teacher.

I am doing my part by helping my fellow mates who are doing engineering and have no exposure to the real world application development or technologies by conducting a series of workshops under the banner of “Buzy Coders Camp”. Recently, our efforts have been recognised by GOOGLE and we are also part of their Google Developers Community program. We have conducted workshops for nearly 500 students from past 1 year and will continue to do more in the coming years.

Let’s create a Hopeful India together and not a Jobless India.

Thank you for reading!

Connect with me on:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sourab-k-a61623ba/