In common parlance, education is understood as an important means to earn a living and secure a nourished lifestyle. Even though there’s always the debate on whether education truly equips apt work ethics in people, it undeniably acts as a savior to execute the services needed in the functioning of life through the lessons of knowledge, hard work, and commitment.
Indian society and education share quite a goal-oriented yet strenuous relationship. This stems from the high-end expectations of certain parents for their children to have a well-paid lucrative job, leading them to join the competitive race of ‘cracking’ entrances. The competitiveness prevalent in the Indian education system sets it apart from the educational systems of other countries. Parents in India have long adhered to the tradition of imposing their career preferences on their wards, often disregarding the child’s interests.
The glorification of the field of sciences, particularly by Indian parents, is an important facet of analyzing what influences students to choose their career paths. Mostly, it’s based on the notion of earning a high salary to support a lavish lifestyle. The primacy given to one field belittles the other domains available to sustain one’s life. The age-old narrow-minded mindset lauds how science as a field can help an individual take up more dignified professions. This reduces the possibility of clinching equally respectable diverse sets of professions through the stream of humanities. People say humanities is a newly emerging discipline. This discipline is rooted in understanding the various facets of human life and its functioning. The most heartbreaking reason why humanities isn’t revered as much as other disciplines is because of Indian parents’ never-ending expectation of their child having a high-profile career. They may be well acquainted with the new ideas of the growing potential of the stream but at the end of the day, they convince their children to accept the fact that they know best. It all comes at the onset of choosing a student’s stream post-class 10 examination. The traditional mindset believes that science leads to dignified professions, ignoring the possibility of equally respectable and diverse careers in humanities.
Speaking of the corporate and the business world, the recruitment mostly caters to people coming from science, technology, mathematics, and business backgrounds. For decades, there have been false assumptions about a humanities or liberal arts degree having less employability than a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) or business degree. This mindset is influenced by schools prioritizing science modules and general assumptions of STEM degrees being more valuable. While the world has started to accept humanities and liberal arts students in the technology-driven job market, the situation in Indian society may be different. The establishment of multidisciplinary degrees, seen in Western societies, is an upcoming development in India. Multidisciplinary courses are beneficial as they provide students with a diverse range of subjects in science, commerce, and humanities. These courses prepare students for the challenging private, public, and government sectors. In recent years, we’ve observed a slight shift in trends with the market demanding Psychology, English, or Public Policy graduates. However, this demand is limited in comparison to the graduates willing to land a well-defined job that serves them a secure and well-balanced lifestyle. It has perhaps to do with the prejudice that the modules taught in humanities or liberal arts are not as quantitative or analytical but rather based on descriptive theories which ultimately doesn’t benefit them in securing jobs that require high aptitude or problem-solving approach.
The world of the job market is changing. The importance of soft skills has gained momentum in the corporate world. Employers are expected to have the ability to teach the required technical skills to the employees, but it is difficult to make anyone grasp the necessary soft skills that are familiar to the humanities graduates. Effective communication, emotional intelligence, cultural understanding, and working well in teams among others are some of the important areas in which humanities graduates have a strong flair. All of it stems from studying subjects like history, political science, sociology, and English. Studying the field of humanities involves moving beyond what has been found in the immediate sense. It seeks to examine human conditioning and reflects the need to grapple with complex issues present in life. This paves the way to indulge in critical thinking that goes beyond problem-solving. It is important to understand that every problem in society may not solely have STEM-specific answers.
The valuable essence of the discipline remains unrealized in Indian society. Graduates still endure challenges in securing jobs. They face uncertainty, which makes their lives constrained. This often leads to parents pressurizing them to prioritize competitive examinations that might go against their academic or professional interests. Competitive examinations in India are revered as a ‘gold path’ to clinching a reputed government job. It is important to understand not everyone wishes to opt for a government job. Just because they study courses like political science, history, and sociology does not mean they are constrained to solely work in the government sector. Certain humanities courses are also claimed to be science-oriented. The disciplines of psychology and sociology specifically get this regard, as the former is said to have an association with biology, and the latter with laws of physics and the understanding of its systematic approach to the evaluation of social reality based on empirical facts, also known as the scientific approach. However, the approach towards these courses is not as embracing as it should be. Research-based portfolios are highly revered in these disciplines but in Indian society, the preference is mostly given to those hailing from STEM backgrounds.
The placement cells in the universities display a bias towards STEM and business graduates, reflected in the greater number of campus recruitment companies for them. The cause of ‘brain drain’ becomes a real issue in this discourse. With no secure job in hand and being labeled as having a ‘purposeless future’, many of them desperately try to move abroad in hopes of clinching a better job by pursuing courses in universities out there.
The reality of the Indian education system and the outcome of jobs of the specific categories of students out of the preferred disciplines creates havoc and stress among students. They are rendered helpless and it ultimately takes a toll on their mental health. A humanities student may not be a math wizard or a coder, but they do possess the essentials of critical thinking and great problem-solving skills. This should be emphasized in society through institutional changes. Educational institutions should encourage students to pursue diverse career paths and embrace each discipline as it is without disregarding any. Most importantly, there should be an emphasis on integrating humanities with other streams at the university level. This would help develop a more active and multifaceted workforce whose members would be able to adapt efficiently to the growing marketplace’s changing needs. This has become the need of the hour in today’s convoluted working life.