VOICE & VIEWS

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CBS LINE

Volume 3(11)

Interviewee - Santhosh T Varghese

                         Head of the Department of Economics

                         Maharaja's College , Ernakulam

                    

Interviewer - Joshni , MSCEFT, Centre for Budget Studies


1.  Kerala has high educational attainment but still suffers from graduate underemployment. In your view, what changes in curriculum, skill development and industry exposure are needed to make Kerala’s students more job-ready for emerging sector?

The issue of employability of graduates  depends upon three important factors. First, on the availability of job openings and educated labour demand from the productive sectors of the economy and second on the mismatch between the  available skill set of the graduates and what is expected by the industry. These are mainly faced by the graduates of  professional educational programmes such as engineering, management. The third one is the glaring and the most important one and is connected with the near absence of any  curriculum content dealing with the imparting of "discipline specific skills" in the educational programmes in general educational programmes in language and literature, social sciences, physical (physics and chemistry), life (botany and zoology), and pure sciences (mathematics and statistics). In other words, the curriculum of educational programmes in Economics seldom focuses upon developing skills that directly deals with the application of theoretical  ideas. For instance, curriculum of Public Economics must lead to the development of  skills to conduct budget analysis or cost benefit analysis. 

2. Many sectors like tourism, retail and services are still recovering from recent economic shocks. How can Kerala’s youth contribute to rebuilding local economies, and what kind of training or mindset should they develop for this?

The issue is more specific and to address such challenges, the graduates have to carefully understand and analyse the specificities  and characteristic details of each issue one by one and attempt to explain them with the theorectical knowledge of the discipline under consideration with the parallels elsewhere (such as in which manner similar issues are analysed and addressed in other parts of the country and world).  On the basis of them, the possible course of interventions  could be discussed and found out. 


3. Kerala increasingly needs reliable data on employment, skills and migration to design better policies. How can students participate in evidence-based research and contribute to more informed public decision-making?

Many reports and surveys are available with respect to the issues mentioned however they remain largely unexplored  by the students or researchers of higher education. For instance, the unit level data of  various surveys such as PLFS are not explored or examined at the disaggregate level by the academic community. By focusing upon them, advices could be extended to the various industrial players concerned.

4. Kerala’s startup ecosystem is growing, yet many students still hesitate to pursue entrepreneurship. What cultural, financial or educational changes are needed to encourage more young people to become entrepreneurs or innovators?

The first and the foremost one is the emphasis that we devote  on developing the "discipline specific skills" of each course and programme of study.  It is worth noting the fact that the entrepreneurial success of Bill Hewlett and David Packard--considered as one among the first success stories of start-ups from higher education--was in fact based on the disciplinary skills that they have studied from their graduate programmes in electrical engineering at Stanford University. The other aspects of support such as the availability of finance, work & office space, risk management may be available from the various startup initiatives of the government and the University. Since every  aspect of culture be it the entrepreneurial  or otherwise, emerges gradually from the practices and interactions of human beings, what is needed is  conscious interventions and deliberate effort to understand the ever-evolving empirical reality.

5. Kerala is rapidly expanding in digital services, fintech, IT-enabled work and online platforms, yet many regions still face a digital divide and uneven access to opportunities. What steps do you believe are necessary to ensure that Kerala’s growing digital job opportunities and online service ecosystem benefit young people across all urban and rural alike—so that economic growth becomes more balanced and inclusive?

The establishment of common computing centres with internet facilities say affordable and subsidised rates, expansion of Akshaya-type service networks, and initiatives of digital and computer literacy programmes  may address the problem of digital divide in Kerala.

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