It is no longer news that we are in an age when disruptive technology, innovation, mechanization, and digital economy are the call of the day, so much that the public and private sectors of various countries are doing their best to adjust while many other countries are barely meeting up.
Still engrossed with the traditional method of running a business and sustaining their countries, little is done for the youth to prepare them for a better future that will aid them when they eventually take over.
Wallowing and brainwashed, parents and the community overemphasis the importance of formal education, therefore students are being sent to institutions to learn basically how to go about things in their line, still using the basic traditional processes.
Medical students know not more but medicine, painters and architects know not more than drawing and planning so much that in the end, we have school-learned graduates who know little about the work environment.
Where has all of this led?
To a world where many are either unemployed or unemployable. To a time when many drop out because of their inability to cope. To a time when everyone and anyone has to attend classes and subjects, they may not have interest in because their degree depends on it. To a century that is stuck with the traditional method of imparting knowledge and teaching and has refused to change it! Where although a lot of governmental and non- governmental organizations have tried to do their best through various investments and efforts, but still the world is changing so rapidly, not only in the educational sector that many young minds, as well as present adults, are not prepared for this change because of the type of training they had while growing.
This, of course, is no one’s blame as the several existing formal approaches to education method deemed it fit that these ways were the solution. Even about twenty years ago, it was still the solution and therefore worked giving a result which was unquestionably remarkable. The result is our professionals today, our bankers, our stock brokers, the insurance managers, the lawyers, the doctors, and many others. But now, things have started changing rapidly that private and public sectors are doing their best to adapt.
Several of the existing formal approaches failed to recognize that different people have different needs and therefore should be supplied with what will make them able to utilize themselves and their skills. The method built everyone in the same way, a repercussion of which is the lack of expressive skills or a life-long learning process. It is the result of the lack of connection between work and what has been learned in school- a result which makes many so unemployable today.
The case of the widening gap between education and the labor market can also be accounted for by the continuous ideology which places a lot more importance on the teachers teaching rather than students getting or understanding what teachers teach. This, of course, led many to not get the original concept or application and rather just an understanding to pass through the class.
Also, a congested large class where no one is specifically identified to be useful other than being brilliant in school terms is another cause of the widening gap. This is because in such cases innovational thoughts are killed as students are made to believe they have nothing else to offer apart from school –works.
In the case of formal education method, little was done in terms of seeing to it that the students also built themselves and offer things to the society as a whole, rather they had to face been restructured to fit, therefore leaving out little or no room for innovation.
Presently, the labor market and disruptive technology are acing so much that many people are being left behind, simply because they have not been “built” to conform to the rapid changes. They have not been taught crucial things that will make them relevant to this century, they have only been schooled and not taught to think, express, carry out and make a change.
This is a trend that has to stop if the India youths are to realize their full potential, ignite it and make adequate use of it. Pre-existing skills should be built and lessons which include skills should be taught in school. If everyone keeps consuming and no one except the few labeled ‘rebels” are producing. In no time, it will no longer be a problem of underdevelopment in the community but underdevelopment in the nation as a whole.
Talents should be refurbished and made into a useful skill for the society. Indian youths should identify what they have to offer the community rather than be the schooled robots who are only taught to join the queue of their job specialty when they graduate.
