Guess while we give Nobel Prizes to support the young in South Asia , lets look at how those hailing their own models are doing . The Anglo-Saxon Land Of Opportunity Model - Students are now consumers and university presidents are CEOs overseeing multiplexes of the college experience. In order to pay for that experience, students are taking out an average of about $30,000 in student loans. The overall student debt in the US has now surpassed $1tn.In 2013, about half of college graduates were unemployed or underemployed.“It’s like a subprime mortgage broker that ripped you off and talked you into buying a house you couldn’t afford,” Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and founder of the Thiel Fellowship, says of student debt.Andrew Rossi, best known for the journalism documentary Page One, has written, directed and produced a new documentary on the increasing prominence of capitalist management principles at US colleges and universities. Ivory Tower The Welfare-State Euro High Human-Rights Saint Model- When EU leaders met in Luxembourg in November 1997, the soon-to-be-born euro zone’s unemployment rate was about 11 percent. Jean-Claude Juncker, then prime minister of the host country, now president designate of the European Commission, promised a mix of free-market solutions and government plans would mean a “new start” for young people. Today the jobless rate is 11.5 percent.The Milan summit will focus on youth unemployment, which afflicts 21.6 percent of people under 25 across Europe, according to Eurostat. Even this number is almost identical to 1997, when it stood at 21.7 percent. . Youth unemployment in Spain reached a new high of 56.1% in 2013 Italy and Greece along with many more are in Spains boat . And the answer being given is , become more Anglo Saxon ! Let us clearly understand , the west has no idea or solutions to how to educate the children or youth and then make them unemployables . Neither do we . We have lacs of schools , thousands of colleges turning out unemployables, disconnected to their resources and traditional occupations and nothing in sight ahead . One of the main reasons of most of our underground movements is the literates we produce who do not want to do agriculture or craft or manufacture but be life-time babus . They were/are easy fodder to the multiple regional and religious and ideological bodies we have aplenty . The so-called skill development was only raised at the fag end of 65 years of the so-called Socialist-Planned Model . In 2009 we think of a PPP model and get NSDC , one single organisation who is suppossed to handle 65 years of total failure of the Indian elite and imagination . We still employ only 25 million in Organised sector of whom 18 million are in the Government . What does this most stupid education system give us ? 450-500 million find their own work in 100 million farms and 50 million small businesses . There has been lot more informed and real discussion in the craft sector on this and they stand between simplistic activist modes and the modern industrial sector which doesnt care . Both Socialism and Capitalism have failed India , as Gandhi knew both are a bit different western notions . That is why State-Capitalism in East Asia run by smart families has monopolised almost all production . Most manufacturing in Europe actually exists as CSR ! USA is a different kettle of fish, they will see to it that immigrants keep the agriculture and manufacturing rolling , as also the software ! The problem is that there are too many silos with very little appreciation of the whole system and solutions . There are very few sensible analysts of this, Laila Tyabji of Dastkar has thought much on this . And what Laila writes holds for almost every sector of farming, manufacturing and services . Home based and Internship based occupational and innovational pedagogy is essential . Germany has brilliant local models as has Japan . Both lost World War 2 . They do not have armies . So their minds and resources worked many solutions the rest did not . In areas where craft is the primary activity, children should be able to opt for craft as a course option, offered as a specialized stream in itself, learning ancillary skills like product design, book keeping, display, merchandising and entrepreneurial skills. For example, in a handloom weaving area, the course skills that should be taught include entrepreneurship, money management, communication, textile design, draughtsmanship, scale drawing, history of the craft, and technical skills. The young craftspeople should also have exposure to other weaving styles, and the different yarns, counts, looms, as well as interaction with other designers, artists and craftspeople. To those of us now looking at the new millennium and seeking new directions for India, the potential of crafts and craftspeople is something younger generations should be sensitized to. Let us not lose sight of the fact that every ten years we lose ten per cent of our craftspeople. The steps needed to prepare and include crafts-people and take them forward as skilled entrepreneurs and economic partners are something we must all introspect on and develop – creating awareness of and building on the strengths rather than weaknesses of each craft and craft community, and being sensitive to their different nuances and cultural consciousness. Economics may be the driving need, but social, cultural and familial concerns must also shape the direction and decision-making process. We need to take the craftspeople with us. Learning to listen as well as speak is something we all need to learn. There must be a shift from patronage to partnership. ‘I should be paid more, because I was thinking and doing,’ one Kalaraksha craftswoman from Kutch succinctly said! There has, rightly, been an outcry and proposed legislation against the exploitative practice of child labour. However, in the craft sector with family trades, the age old system of apprenticeship, properly regulated, could be developed as an alternative education rather than exploitation. A blanket ban on children learning craft would lose out on a unique opportunity to create a skilled workforce of potential high earners and self-employment, in a country with rising unemployment and few employment avenues for rural youth, especially home-based women. But let me also stress that in my view any child under fifteen who is not at school is child labour. Sadly, in the craft sector in India, the choice is often between a craftsman’s child learning ancestral skills (while on the job, and contributing to the family income in the process) while remaining academically illiterate or at best getting a conventional education. Given the very poor levels of rural and state-provided education, such schooling might not actually equip him for any job in the future. In Ranthambhore, the village school teacher would report on duty to sign his daily attendance, and then go off to the forest as a tourist guide! For me, this is the crucial issue. Not poverty, which is often cited as a justification for child labour, but whether there are alternative educational opportunities for a child which would give him/her the same employment avenues? Can child labour be transformed – through legislation and through innovative new planning and educational mechanisms – into a vibrant new form of training and empowerment? In particular home-based traditional industries, and those relating to women. Training in craft skills, whether at home, or through the traditional guru-shishya parampara, should be recognized as industrial training, and given the same support as other technical and vocational education. The family, master craftsperson, cooperative society, institution or NGO imparting the training should receive some stipend so that the child rather than the employer receives any money (s)he may earn in the process. Otherwise, there is the temptation, often succumbed to, of making the children bonded labour under the guise of imparting a skill – as has happened in the brass industry in UP and Andhra Pradesh, where craft has moved from a family occupation to an assembly-line mass manufacture. The carpet industry is another notorious example, though international pressure and legislation have forced some changes. The Rugmark Smiling Carpet example, though not perfect in either concept or application, could be a module for developing further strategies. In a country as diverse and multidimensional as India, there is no one single solution, or methodology. india-seminar/2007/570/570_problem.htm bloomberg/news/2014-10-07/europe-sacrifices-a-generation-with-17-year-unemployment-impasse.html theguardian/money/student-debt-us theguardian/business/2013/aug/30/spain-youth-unemployment-record-high
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 01:52:02 +0000
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