Rural Un-employment – Lot to Learn

I recently visited 4 villages, where I met a lot of village parents, who have opted to send their children to our English Medium school. I took the opportunity to discuss an issue, which keeps troubling me about rural un-employment. In most houses I visited there is at least one “Son”, who is sitting idle at home. Education varies from 10^th fail to BA pass (and some time BA and B.Ed.).

So, why are they sitting at home and not working?

Answer from parents: There is no jobs.

I drilled down further. What is the kind of salaries they want, the starter said 4500 – 5000 per month. Why work for less, as there is always NREGS, which offers Rs. 100 a day with minimal effort if you know the right people (youth typically seems to know the right people). Somebody from my camp tried reminding the NREGS is only for 100 days and not everyone can get away without working. However, not many people registered that small flaw in the argument pegging salary to Rs. 4500/- per month for the lowest of jobs.

Then suddenly one person (taking my side) quoted that people are preparing from government jobs (and are will to pay for it EXTRA) where salaries are as low as Rs. 950 -1200 / month. The other person agreed, but countered me by telling “It is a government job. It is different”.

I again asked them, what stops someone from taking up even a Rs. 100/- per month job from a scenario of not earning anything, as it anyway does not prevent their WAITING and in some cases PREPARING for their dream government (OR high paying) jobs. All of them agreed that it makes sense. One old man suggested that it makes you an earning member of society and exposes you to other people who see your work and help you move up the earning curve with your efforts.

I won the argument, and they were intelligent people who added to my argument. Hurray. However, will these people be willing to take up the jobs at an average of Rs. 3000/- per month that I was offering them in Bangalore and Sikar. Possibly NO.

A senior colleague of mine commented strongly (and rather harshly) about the possibility of converting the “non-working” rural youth to “working” youth once they have sat idle for more than an year. He said, “They are corrupted in their youthful vigor and addicted to politics, power, dada-giri and roaming around with friends and will never make good workers”.

May be he is right, but I hope only partially so.

MAY BE

• May be, they are addicted and it is difficult to break their habit.
• However, may be there is something more to understanding their reasons and the way to get them addicted to working instead.

There is a way out - SEEKING HELP

I was reading a case study on “Jaipur Rugs” in the latest addition of Prof. C.K. Prahlad’s “Bottom of the Pyramid”. The average income offered by Jaipur rugs ranges from Rs. 1800 to Rs. 3000/- per month for the weavers and they have more than 40,000 rural weavers working with them. A possible connect in this case is, that Jaipur Rugs offered to WOMEN something to earn from their home, and villagers were willing to experiment and learn.

I have met Mr. N.K. Chaudhury and he is one of the most humble chairmen I have ever met. He smiles and asks me to keep up to it, keep the offering simple and people will come around and work.

Is "Competition" in children good? Shall we reward Meritocracy?

Shall we award anyone first rank, just because they scored highest marks!!

Or possibly scold them for making other children feel bad.

I think we should encourage the first, and I am hopeful that most of the readers will agree. As an individual, I appreciate the philosophy of reducing the number of formal tests and percentage marks in junior classes as suggested by our educational system. However, I fear that many of my educational peers and many parents (especially in villages), are misjudging this as an excuse for under-performance or complacence. There is a threat of further slackening in educational standards if external monitoring and guidance systems are not in place.

If it was not for 8^th and 10^th boards results, we will never know the criminally inadequate education in many public & private schools.

Hence, I disagree with abolition of exams and shifting to grade system to reduce the pressure in children and their parents. I think a movie like “Three Idiots” does a better job at making children / parents aware, that every child has her own strong points and interest. Develop these talents and you will find the “Rancho”, “Raju” or “Farhan” in your wards.

Treating the disease, rather than the symptom

If you fail despite your honest efforts, it is the “SYSTEM” that failed, not you. It failed to identify the talent in you, groom you, and then judge you accordingly. It is the same mistake as we made in farming some 30 years back, spray a “Kill-all” pesticide for pest control, and in the process, we killed the friendly pests and butterflies in the process.

Improve and expand the system to enable judging students for creative thinking, sports, music, art, innovation and grade them on all these talents. However, if somebody has a great aptitude for science or commerce and tops in class, don’t penalize them saying other children will feel bad so we shift to grading system.

Keep Competition alive – Make it more Healthy

Help children to perceive competition in a positive way. Competition helps you become better than what you are today. It forces you to keep learning, improving and finding better ways of doing things. Don’t kill the sense of competition and the zeal to excel, help children understand their own strength and help them develop these skills further and try and compete to become better.

In Summary

Expand the horizons of education beyond textbooks, Science and Maths. Create more winners and performers in far greater number of disciplines. Just make sure that no one who is willing to work hard, shall remain a looser.

Visiting the parents (of my children)

A positive Change

Sounds funny, but it fits in, when I tell you that I run a school. J

We started a school in rural India last year and I wanted to meet the parents in small groups and know there feedback on school and the studies so far. I met people in four villages and ironically, the ones who came had very good things to say about us. Typically, we expect people with grievance and complaints to turn up for such meetings.

I witnessed an interesting change in the outlook of parents on education vis-à-vis my last years interactions. I wish the credit had gone to us, but i think credit is due to “Three Idiots” an excellent creation and enactment by our little master (Amir Khan). Though, I wish my village friends had also appreciated “Tare Zameen Par” as much or even more. I place it above “Three Idiots” any day, especially for young children, where parents and teachers play a significant role in their development.

The parents whose main focus in life used to be, for child to be able to speak in English in front of guests, were talking of “education” to necessarily include games, sports and teaching children good manners (read value-system).

I would like to thank “Three Idiots” team for having delivered a positive message penetrating even the rural community. I hope more such brilliantly entertaining and message movies come out from Bollywood.