Page 16 - EW-June-2024

Editorial

AGENDA FOR NEW CENTRAL GOVERNMENT the onus is on businessmen to comply
in which rules and regulations on pain
of punitive action.
ith all campaigning for Gen- has choked the legal system. The third urgent priority of the new
eral Election 2024 by order Rising inflation and unemployment government at the Centre should be to
Wof the Election Commission have emerged as the most hot-button mend the country’s education system
obliged to end today (May 30) and a issues of the recently concluded Gen- across the spectrum to ignite the minds
new government set to be sworn in at eral Election 2024 campaign. Alarm- of 1.4 billion citizens. This requires de-
the Centre by the time this issue of ing data has emerged that the heavi- velopment of thinking and innovation
EducationWorld is accessible to read- est burden of pervasive and spreading skills to resolve long-standing socio-
ers, this is a good time to draw up an unemployment is being borne by the economic development issues that
agenda for the new government after country’s youth who, according to ILO have slowed the nation development
prolonged and acrimonious election- data, constitute 80 percent of unem- effort. The plain truth is contemporary
eering. ployed adults. The urgent solution to India doesn’t have an unemployment
The first priority of the new gov- this phenomenon that is assuming as much as an unemployables problem
ernment should be to reach out to the dangerous proportions, is to sharply with the education system annually
opposition to let bygones be bygones reduce barriers and impediments to churning out over 10 million nomi-
and set about observing the written the growth of the country’s estimated nally educated youth who add to the
and unwritten rules of democratic 63 million MSMEs (micro, small and widening pool of unemployed.
governance. This requires govern- medium sector enterprises) which The root cause of this phenom-
ment and opposition parties to agree employ 80 percent of the country’s enon is deep misalignment between
to respect the rules of parliamentary industrial workforce. the academy and industry operating
decorum and permit orderly debate According to Teamlease, a Bengal- in iron-walled silos. There's an urgent
and engagement in both houses of uru-based employees assessment and need for industry leaders to serve
Parliament. In recent years because of placements firm, MSMEs are required on the curriculum-setting boards of
frequent ‘disruptions’ of Parliament, to negotiate 1,536 Central and state schools, colleges and universities to
a large number of hastily drafted and government Acts and rules, 69,233 ensure that school-leavers and gradu-
inadequately debated laws, rules and compliances and make 6,618 annual ates are equipped with sufficient aca-
regulations have been hurriedly en- filings which drive up cost of doing demic learning and skill-sets required
acted resulting in confusing and often business, impeding growth, expan- by India Inc. This is a necessary pre-
contradictory legislation which slows sion and recruitment. Preventive con- condition of reducing unemployment
down national business and has re- trol and regulation of industry needs and providing Indian industry the
sulted in unnecessary litigation which to be replaced with a system in which productivity leap it urgently needs.

INDIA'S PROLONGED INVENTIONS DROUGHT other hand in America, an automatic
dishwasher was patented in 1850, Ste-
phen Poplawski invented the mixer-
ast month, shrinivas r. kulkarni, In particular, a striking non- blender in 1922 and William Cullen,
an Indian-origin professor at the achievement is that none of India’s the refrigerator in 1748.
LCalifornia Institute of Technol- 45,473 colleges and 1,167 universi- The prime cause of intellectual in-
ogy (Caltech), was awarded the pres- ties — some of them of over 150 years ertia and lack of originality in Indian
tigious 2024 Shaw Prize in astronomy. vintage — have produced a unique society is rooted in rote learning which
Kulkarni is the latest from a long sock-it-to-em invention in over seven persists across the spectrum from pre-
list of emigrant scientists, economists, decades since independence. All the primary to higher education. A copy-
authors and academics who have world’s wonder products and inven- paste and plagiaristic education sys-
made notable and significant contri- tions which have transformed human tem can never innovate products and
bution to the creation, advancement lives, livelihoods, cultures and mores services that will compel the world to
and dissemination of new knowledge — motor car, telephone, jet plane, the beat a path to our doors.
and perspectives for improvement of internet, cell phones, farm tractors, The National Education Policy
the condition of humankind. The con- and chemical fertilisers etc — have (NEP) 2020 exhorts educators to de-
tribution of our own scientists, econo- been invented and commercialised velop dormant critical thinking, in-
mists and intellectuals has clearly been abroad. The country’s estimated 1.5 novation and problem-solving skills
inadequate because 75 years after the million engineering graduates per of our children from early years. This
country attained independence, India year have not been able to invent necessitates a concerted, national
continues to be ranked among the a light-weight metal plough which drive to promote the learning of STEM
poorest countries worldwide in per would leapfrog farm productivity. (science, technology, engineering and
capita income, UNDP’s Human De- Curiously, India’s millions of scien- mathematics) subjects not merely to
velopment Index, Oxford University’s tists and engineers have failed and/or excel in examinations, but to apply
World Happiness Report and Ease of neglected to invent even noteworthy learning to resolve common challeng-
Doing Business Index. The only indi- kitchen appliances to lessen the back- es and problems confronting society.
ces in which it is high ranked are cor- breaking work of hundreds of millions This requires a societal mindset revo-
ruption and the law’s delay. of housewives and women. On the lution that’s not visible as yet.

16 EDUCATIONWORLD JUNE 2024