SINCE its inception, Pakistan has spent so for turbulent years of its internal and external history. Internal history could not develop the socio-political dynamics the way its neighbours like India and Bangladesh developed. Pakistan, being a post-colonial state kept on toeing the line of the British Sahibs and popularized the culture of white-collar jobs preferably and henceforth established and developed those educational institutions which would help the youth to be able to acquire such jobs. The Pakistani high ups could not establish any scientific or technical strong institutions which could popularize the culture of blue-collar jobs and so even today we have turned up into a consumer economy instead of the producer economy. Even 2024, a greater number of the young people are engaged or employed only in the services sector instead of the production sector. The main reason being the colonial mindset that preferred gaining hold of power over poor and common masses and enjoying the elitist privileges and perks.
Having said that, at the end of the day, the issues remain the same that we did not follow the example and model of our most beneficial neighbour China where almost everyone is a blue-collar job holder and young or old, man or woman, educated or less educated, all are engaged in doing something productive and consequently, China now is the biggest producer economy of the world and is gradually emerging as an economic superpower which can challenge the formerly known superpowers. The same is the model of the Japanese, Korea, Singapore and Bangladesh. Whatever the case may be, the time has come that we can no longer afford to keep our youth waiting for the white-collar jobs with such a huge population figure which are simply pulling the economy downwards instead of flourishing ones. The youth is now forced to move to the foreign greener pastures and do some menial or technical jobs for which they undertake new skill-based courses as a necessary condition of the developed world.
The time is now ripe enough to take a shift from the training of our youth into the white-collar jobs to skill-based jobs. These skills must be soft as well as hard ones. But first of all, we need to create dignity of labour as our moral code also demands, which can change the thinking of the people that work is good for progress and no work is a low work. It must depend upon the skills acquired by a person to perform. The higher the skills level one has, he may be given an equal respect and honour. And secondly, the skills should begin from basic life skills to professional skills of doing things and producing things. For example, the youth who don’t want to spend any more time in educational institutions, they may opt to learn electrician, mechanical, chemical, plumbing and technical, skills of cooking, mending because without such workers, the household and offices and industries cannot run. The educational institution which simply teaches the Master of Arts to just ornament the candidates of higher qualifications, these must be replaced with the institution which teaches specifically designed and purpose built courses.
These days, information technology and computer assisted skills are much in demand so our youth must equip themselves with such computer skills which may help them get fitted in the upcoming social set up which is going to obliterate all traditional jobs and will only demand the persons who have developed or learned/acquired computer skills. Such graduates can work wonders in the fields of electronic communications. This calls for the development of effective communication techniques because the business economy needs such workers to run and maintain their businesses. So, the Pakistani institutions must work diligently on developing the effective communications skills among the youth, so that they can perform their jobs and businesses as effectively as possible. But unfortunately, so far, this aspect of the academic life of the youth is being ignored.
We need to modernize our agriculture sector also and that is impossible without the availability of the professional agricultural graduates who may be willing to do things with their skills for the enhancement of crops both in quality and quantity. We cannot shy away or shut our eyes from this reality that we have an ever-bulging number of mouths to feed for which enhancement of professional Agri-skills must be the goal of 21st century Pakistan. In fact, every student must be taught one or the other technical skill as a survival kit instead of giving higher education just to take up a white-collar job. This is possible only when we raise the respect and honour for work and begin equipping our learners with some or the other practical skill so that they can honourably earn their living and may be the biggest contributors to the socio-political economy of our country.
—The writer is a Professor of English at Emerson University, Multan, and has a vast international exposure.
