The term ‘3 Rs’ has been understood for long to represent the three skills reading, writing and arithmetic regarded as the fundamentals of education. Given the ubiquitous low rating bestowed upon the present education system in the land credited in a large measure to the British historian and administrator Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859), one is prompted to add to the 3 Rs the all-too-familiar 4th R namely, remembering (for reproducing in the answer books during the various qualifying examinations). Maybe, crossing the 3 Rs bar entitles an individual to be included among the country’s literates. Currently, about 70 percent of the land’s masses are reportedly literate. While India figures among countries across the world hosting largest number of graduates in Science, Arts, Engineering, Management and so on, created at costs of astronomical proportions to both the government and their families, the point to ponder over is about the return on investment to both the nation and respective parents and guardians.

Global rating agencies, along with sources in the World Bank, are being regularly featured in the media nowadays highlighting India’s current economic slow-down. Seasoned analysts of the trends reflecting that phenomenon in the country are raising the important issues of job creation and job losses while the country’s more than 200 companies conspicuously figure as principal contributors to the nation’s economic slow-down.

Arresting the massive job loss, particularly in the industry sector, being required to be addressed on a war-footing, all agencies in the land shall have to gear themselves to proceed beyond acquiring the skills of 3 Rs. A Union Minister, as reported in a section of the press this week, sounds reassuring and optimistic about the country’s youth turning the nation into one of job-creators instead of job-seekers. If only they are enabled to build upon their faculties by achievers in the business of gainfully marshalling the human resources, there are enormous opportunities for the youth to enlarge on the time-honoured 3 Rs by pursuing Replacement, Refinement and Reduction. The nation’s economy also stands to be enriched through pursuit of one more set of 3 Rs namely Reduce, Reuse and Recycle the scarce resources essential to support life.

The oft-reported data on a) unemployment, b) under-employment and c) unemployability of graduates, the last one sourced to the industry circles, raise the fundamental question: If the present dispensation is generating a huge and growing mass of wasted youth, why not give it up and replace by a competent and competitive workforce beyond learning 3 Rs?