Anuradha, 23 year old daughter of an ex clerk who attended the best institution and obtained good grades, never thought she would be in the street for so long. Having a basic knowledge of computers, secretarial work, English and few additional language-she hunted for a job since graduating in1998. At last she found a lame bird in the mushrooming industry of private boarding school in Katmandu. She showed her ambition. But the reward of the hunt was less than the least anyone could imagine. To speak plainly she started at 1200 rupees per month. A bird in hind is worth more than two in the bush-it is true but unfortunately her six months contract ended when the school hired a teacher of her qualification for only a thousand. Anu was back in the street again. Since then she has mailed more than fifty applications but has been invited to only a few interviews. For many of the interviews she attended there were about 20 to 50 times more candidates than required by the firm.
In a land where fatalism exceeds development and a front man leads the diplomats and bureaucrats-where the rich get an easy ladder to richness and the poor poorer- what can Anus do? What can the son of an ignorant peasant do? Is that the grace they get from their society, parties and leaders? Now, she is not a student, she‘s not a professional. She is lost, she‘s no where. For Anuradha life is shame and despair. Anu is not alone. She is one of the thousands of hunters under thirty.
Mass unemployment is programmed to happen on greater scale. Automation will prevail and progress even further. Decades of computerization, mechanization and rationalization have made job disappear from developed countries and this train is sure to travel to the third world.
We are in a painful transitional period of urbanization and development acquiring knowledge and skill to draw services. If we can modify our educational system and gear it towards gainful employment and services and if education can be made lifelong undertaking, it can furnish most people with meaningful work between school and an old age.
Out of work out of luck- this is what makes the generation angry. This is becoming evident in many ways. A recent Survey in Nepal saw juvenile delinquency, drug abuse and unemployment as a threat to society, because their frustrations are pent-up. As a result, social problems are now rapidly increasing. Delinquency among youth, increase in crime and divorce rates, problems with the aged, a gap between poor and rich problem like these are ruining society today. It is shocking that 50% of social crimes such as murders, sex-crimes, assault and battery are committed by young people in their teens and twenties. Moreover, depression over job shortages is feeling a boarder malaise-some members of this lost generation are tuning to political extremism, some to potty violence, some to drugs, some to prostitution and some other ugly habits. They think that hey can’t be function as part of society and believe that the rewards and responsibilities of adulthood will stay out of their reach. I can’t think of my marriage and family, says Rupak, 28 years old commerce graduate.
Unprecedented challenges face the youth of today-politician, bureaucrats and planners should sit down together and work out a policy on how to cope with this new type of mass unemployment, both rural uneducated and urban educated-otherwise democracy will be endangered. Young people must be given opportunities to demonstrate their creativity, energy and commitment to solving their own problems. Give the youth a chance to show what they are worth.
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