Can the youth really become a changing agentIJ If yes, then change is essential for the existing system or completely a reformation has to be done in the hands of the youth.
Keeping this in mind, engaging young people as partners in community change is a compelling idea, but translating that idea into effective practice requires focused attention to a range of issues. In order to authentically engage in the reform process, youth need clear opportunities to share responsibility for their own learning and for the community reform processes. They also need to connect how and what they learn and what they do in the community. What our nation today needs is the power of youth.
Youth aged between 15 and 24 years constitute some 222 million and represent 20 per cent of the Indian population. This cohort is healthier, more urbanized and better educated than earlier generations. So, youth joining politics need not have a political background. Simply, they need to have zeal and desire to serve the nation. The youth today is called by many names; it is this generation X, which is going to lead the nation and the world. ‘leaders of tomorrow’ is what they are called as. The whole nation is in deep need of such people who hold the fervor of leading a nation or doing good deeds. In the present scenario, the nation is in dire need of intellectual and intelligent youth. Our nation calls for younger leaders who can lead us all through the time. There is an urgent need of youthful figures to take the form of tokenism in marching ahead this process of transformation. The young blood can handle situations in a better way. According to the latest studies, young people are the ones who are aware of latest things, about which the old people may not be aware of. The old saying, “slow and steady wins the race,” has been replaced by, “fast and competent wins the race.”
Youth unemployment rate is more than twice as high as the adult one – 23.3 per cent against 9.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2012. The chances for a young unemployed person of finding a job are low – only 29.7 per cent of those aged 15-24years and unemployed in 2010 found a job in 2011.When young people do work, their jobs tend to be less stable– in 2012, 42 per cent of young employees were working on a temporary contract (four times as much as adults) and 32 per cent part-time (nearly twice the adults’ rate). Early leavers from education and training are a high-risk group – 55.5 per cent of them are not employed and within this group about 70 per cent want to work. Resignation is an increasing concern – 12.6 per cent of inactive youth wanted to work but were not searching for employment in the third quarter of 2012. In 2011, 12.9 per cent of young people were neither in employment nor in education and training (NEETs).
The commonalities and differences among various strands of youth action programming have to be explored. This needs to engage young people in meaningful youth action, new opportunities and challenges which provide direction for programming, planning, policy and funding flow. looking to this methodology, adults create the expectations that young people be both informed educational consumers and engaged changed-makers. The community leaders need to organize for collective impact to improve youth outcomes. It is imperative that young people’s participation as learners and leaders are both invited, expected and supported. Educators, administrators, policymakers, community members and other stakeholders with a common lens should reflect the planning change. It can also be useful in assessing the range of reform and change strategies underway. Effective youth councils should be built which can give practical guide to engage the youth in policy-making. This requires youth community mobilizers which not only can share strategies but also can advise in capacity building. It is an irreducibly fundamental fact that the educated youth by joining mainstream politics can not only salvage the ever-deteriorating image of Indian political class, but also can arrest the continuous corrosion of Indian democracy.
The kind of fractious political environment that our disputed leaders have created over the years in it has become the biggest deterrent for any educated and equitably honest youth to take politics as a dignified career. Almost 25 per cent of our parliamentarians have criminal backgrounds. The matter of fact is that Indian democracy has invariably posed a classical dichotomy with respect to Indian demographics. The discordant manner of the Indian politics has bereft the youth from its chapter. The real catalytic change can happen only when political parties in power have a pre-potently dynamic youth oriented perspective. They need to not just invigoratingly encourage educated youth to participate but they need to have a systematic selection and funding process which is very much essential to pave way for a fundamentally strong and prosperously efficacious democracy, wherein the youth can rule the nation and bring a vitalizing transformation. Now it’s the time the youth blew their clarion call and woke up all the mass in stirring the tempo of bringing a remarkable reformation in the society. let the nation join hands in making this mission turn into reality.
(Dr Subhashree Das is the Research and Documentation Coordinator of National Coalition for Education. She can be mailed at subha.nceindia@gmail.com)