The stipulation for admission to the primary first year class, namely “not less than five years and ten months” followed in the State has recently witnessed a cosmetic change as it were, enabling parents to admit their offspring to pre-primary class at the age of three-plus, a measure that the urbanite parents have grabbed. Thus, the journey of the child to learn the tricks of the trade of life, quite apart from the trade itself, now begins two years ahead of what it used to be until very recent past. The rule of no detention-in-the-same-class up to ninth standard, introduced a few years ago in the state may have made the school teachers take it easy, but yet the episodes of school drop-out before crossing the eight standard are being reported until now. Two factors namely (a) The stream of choice from science, arts, commerce and (b) Marks scored in the qualifying exam used to determine the course of study beyond the pre-university class, but that scene has just witnessed a change too.

To be armed with either a degree or diploma in one or the other subject on offer in the system that has endured for many decades, and to seek employment in the wide world of labouring for a livelihood, one is well past the age of twenty years. The demon of unemployment rides on the back of the mass of educated youth whose number is anybody’s guess.

By the time a batch of students beginning the journey of training for earning a livelihood reaches the point of knocking at the doors of a college, nearly 90 percent of that number reportedly keep away. Of the 10 percent who enter the portals of the University to pursue higher education, only a minor fraction of that number succeed in landing jobs that matches their academic qualification and their abilities needed in the respective profession. This brings us to the point of taking up the serious case of the rest who have also spent the same number of years of training with considerable cost to their parents and guardians, apart from the resources of the government.

Nationally, the mass of youth taking up jobs in no way using their training but to earn as livelihood is a colossal waste of their intellect and abilities. The land’s intelligentsia, instead of engaging themselves in unrewarding debates on issues of no benefit to society, has to come out with ways and means of putting an end to the ongoing mismatch between academic qualifications and avenues of livelihood with a sense of urgency.