In a recent workshop, I heard several instructors urging young people to consider some hard facts regarding their career and educational choices. “Degree is not destiny” and “your certificate is not your ceiling” were often-repeated exhortations in the conference hall. What happens when degrees fail to fetch jobs or meaningful work? Academic Krishna Kumar argues that the driving force behind the urge to obtain more and more degrees lies within our education system and economic structures. It also can be located in collective psychology, and mental attitudes. The need to delink degrees from jobs was recognised in the 1980s, but little progress was made for several reasons. As far as the NEP 2020 is concerned, one can only say that there is a lot of noise on the stairs, but no one is in the room.
Degree Disease
Contrary to efforts aimed at delinking degrees from employment, I see a growing clamour for foreign degrees even after obtaining one locally. Pertinently, under the new policy, young people are allowed to pursue dual degrees. Part of the blame for this hangover lies with the erstwhile colonial state, which, for its own purposes, introduced a system of education that was not in sync with the needs and educational traditions of the subcontinent. The British needed babus to run the administration, and after 1947, the change was merely from white sahibs to brown sahibs.
Eminent British sociologist Ronald Dore, in his celebrated book The Diploma Disease, explains the craze for more degrees, certificates, and diplomas. Instead of looking into behavioural psychology for answers, he links the phenomenon to the devaluation of qualifications. The problem of joblessness further fuels the urge to acquire new credentials. Prof. Krishna Kumar argues that the volatility of the job market creates anxiety among young people, compelling them to become eligible for as many jobs as possible. This, in turn, opens the path for acquiring multiple degrees in the vast education bazaar. This mad race for certificates wastes and exhausts the energy of young people, most of whom depend on parental finance and advice. Unfortunately, the obsession with accumulating degrees has given birth to what experts call the “time-pass generation” — youth who merely count days and nights while waiting for a job and experiencing restless boredom. The colonial framework of education also made us hesitant to work with our own hands.
Time-Pass Generation
It was during his fieldwork in the Meerut region of Uttar Pradesh for his doctoral thesis that scholar Craig Jeffrey, in 1999, observed groups of young men outside two colleges near a tea stall, most of them belonging to Jat families. These young people were the object of lavish parental attention and heavy educational investment. Drawn by the hope of salaried employment, these men spent much of their day in what they called “time pass. “Much later, in China, we noticed an equivalent phenomenon in the “lying-flat” movement, which encouraged youth to withdraw from the economic race and settle for modest workplace success and limited consumer fulfilment. Until recently, many in South Asia resorted to the “donkey route” to leave their countries and settle abroad. In Senegal and several other countries, youth have responded to such frustrations by organising cultural festivals to vent their pent-up anxieties.
The unemployment of the educated did not begin with the economic reforms of 1991, nor is it confined to any particular region. A recent study by Azim Premji University found graduate unemployment existing as far back as 1983, even when the public sector was expanding and education was largely viewed as a public good. There are several explanations for this problem.
First, our higher education system is broken. Many of our challenges stem from an acute leadership crisis in higher education. Foreign and private universities may have some space to address this issue, but public-sector institutions have increasingly become liabilities. In China, reforms became possible because of visionary managers. The country is a one-party system but campus culture is interactive and innovative. You cannot convert university/College into a graveyard to showcase your administrative efficiency. The universities/Colleges are not monasteries but places where students have a right to be wrong. The time has come for us to hire the best talent from anywhere to run our institutions and provide them with maximum autonomy to achieve targets. The leadership of higher education institutions should not be selected on the basis of parochial considerations or opportunistic ideological alignments of aspirants. The historic Government College/ University Lahore was built by a Hungarian Jew with the motto: “Courage to Know.” A Muslim beggar contributed one rupee toward the establishment of Banaras Hindu University.
The government and the market need to provide outcome-linked grants to institutions while encouraging them to diversify their revenue streams. To restore academic rigour, we must address governance issues through deep audits and institutional restructuring. Recently, noted academic Prof. Dinesh Singh in an interview at the India Today Conclave, admitted that India has lost its way while implementing NEP 2020. The fact remains that no institution can rise above the quality of its leadership. To quote Cardinal Lawrence: “Let us pray that God grants us a pope who knows how to doubt.”
Second, every country’s growth model eventually undergoes transition and exhaustion. In India, the 1991 economic reforms undoubtedly marked a major turning point. Investment manager Saurabh Mukherjea, while speaking at the Indian Express Adda, observed that India faces three major stresses. White-collar employment has stagnated even as the country produces nearly eighty lakh graduates annually. Small businesses face volatility, profits are increasingly concentrated, and nearly eighty percent of employment generated by small companies is under pressure. Additionally, wage compression has intensified, and instead of relying on employers for retirement benefits and healthcare, citizens are increasingly being asked to become self-reliant.
It must also be underlined that while we depoliticised the economy and built broad political consensus across ideological lines, we simultaneously politicised higher education, resulting in declining standards and rising mediocrity. We must urgently overhaul the system to make graduates employable and, in contemporary parlance, “job-ready.”
Some measures that need to be undertaken in earnest include the following:
First, we are not alone in experiencing rapid changes and economic stress. According to The Harvard Crimson annual faculty survey, professors warn of declining academic focus, with nearly two-thirds believing that students prioritise jobs over classroom learning. Land reforms and phenomenal expansion of English medium schools in Jammu and Kashmir, the literacy movement in Kerala, the English-medium schooling boom in Goa, and near-universal education in Mizoram have all expanded access to education without ensuring alignment with employability. We realised this too late and began lamenting how education has outpaced employability. In Kerala, much of the educated workforce holds degrees in commerce and the arts, while job growth lies elsewhere. There are useful lessons to be learned from states such as Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim, where balanced growth has led to better absorption of educated youth.
Second, the recent Union Budget (2026–27) proposal for five higher education townships or university hub zones near major industrial and logistics corridors across different states should be expanded. This initiative is expected to create a more integrated academic ecosystem where universities and industries can work side by side to bridge the gap between education and employment. Entrepreneurial initiatives surrounding Stanford University were valued at approximately three trillion dollars in 2012. During COVID-19, the University of Houston contributed significantly to the city’s economy.
We continue to view education as a linear journey: school, college, university, and then employment. In China, however, many young people enter the economy through practical, income-generating skills such as repairing goods, preparing food, or producing simple items. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” These are not fallback options but legitimate entry points into economic life. Such youth redefine education through modest beginnings.
Third, from a foundational perspective, we need to reconceptualise school education and treat any dilution of it as an original sin. The key features of school education in Finland include ensuring that every child feels seen, heard, and valued. Children trust their teachers. The system is not centred on grades but on learning, curiosity, creativity, and a love for education. Students are free to explore, and teachers are free to support them. The government in Jammu and Kashmir should consider sending committed educational leaders to Finland so that best practices may be studied and replicated, as many governments have already done.
In conclusion, it must be reiterated that “an investment in knowledge pays the best interest,” as Benjamin Franklin famously said. Finland has made education a national priority, while Israel has declared brainpower its greatest natural resource. We should not make a mess of it.
The author is Kashmir based Political Scientist.
