A failure to create jobs at the same rate of population growth finally boiled over into violence this year. In January, large mobs torched railway stations and train carriages across northern and eastern India after it emerged there were at least 10 million applicants for 40,000 railway jobs and irregularities over the entrance exam.
In June, mobs again set transport hubs alight in 11 Indian states, with at least one protester dying in the violence, over a proposed short-term military recruitment scheme that many Indians said would limit their future employment prospects.
“We have an education system where students progress often without acquiring foundational skills and meeting curriculum level expectations,” said Yamini Aiyar, the director of the Center for Policy Research, a Delhi-based think tank.
“When they reach the high stakes exams in the 10th grade, whereby passing is the route to a semi-skilled job, the pressure is high. Then map that onto a labour market which doesn’t have enough jobs. I see it as a phenomenon of desperation rather than just cheating.”
Now,…
