Education is important yes, Quality of education is important, also how well developed the skills are more important,
Let me highlight some situations for you,
Most students who now study in higher universities in USA are from India and China, These students are perhaps the core of their respective countries and importantly, they did not stop at being Graduates and crib about it, they opted to show that they are better than mere graduates and that means specialisation.
These students learn better because they have an aim.
Now like you and your pal Bonobashi say,, we make 13 million graduates, but what are the quality of these graduates? Just graduating does not mean a thing, few decade ago, being HSC pass could get you a decent job (my uncle was HSC pass and he got job in Municipal corporation on his MERIT. Sure that time people did not opt for Municpal jobs because they were not high paying, people opted to go to banks as Indian banks were evolving, people opted to join Income tax or other better payers.
Now due to population explosion, the opportunities which are there are highly competitive, Take graduation for example, few decades ago there might be few thousands of Graduates and now there are millions. but what are the quality of these?
The problem in indian mindset is that we want to be graduate to get a job, "become a graduate and you will get a job" but this was true few decades ago, and we have not upgraded ourselves. Graduating merely puts you in pool of few millions of jobless graduates. Merely saying "Modiji give me a job" does not help, What exactly are they doing for their skill set?
Earlier people used to do graduation and typing, later typing was replaced by being computer savvy, now these do not help these are basic norms; "Ability to chat on whatsapp" is not a skill.
Believe me, eduation and knowledge sometimes are not related, and I can give an example
A friend of mine worked with a big pharma company in R&D and he wanted assistants . So being a big pharma company, they put an ad for it,
A day after the ad they received more than few hundred thousand CVs and they called a batch for interview. The first class guys from Chemistry. And during the interview, my friend used to ask them random question, One of which was "what is a buffer" None of the first class holders was able to answer that question, They went through few batches of candidates and then he came to a conclusion that most of these guys are first class holders in chemistry, but they do not know what is buffer, because it was not there in final exam.
Then when working late, he thought to analyse the requirement, and wondered by they needed a Chemistry graduate? Chemistry graduate is perhaps required because they know about Chemistry,
On a weekend, a guy who was studying chemistry in the university and relative of one of the employee was there, and the guy was curiously looking at the R&D lab, rather he was almost stuck to the glass window trying to look at everything. During the past week when he called those candidates, none of them seemed to look at the equipment in the lab most were looking around at the lights, the ACs the flooring and furniture. He called the guy inside and asked him to sit while he was doing the set up of the equipment, but the guy rather than sit, was eager to try and be of assistance. My friend asked him what he was doing, he said he was studying SY BSc, and the next question my friend asked if he wanted to get knowledge part time (work part time) the guy was more eager to learn than about the pay and said yes. He had found the right candidate.,
When he went to the HR, they objected saying the candidate is not a graduate etc etc. His answer was simple, the graduation need was that of HR, and not his, he wanted a candidate who shows initiative in learning and not canddates who just wanted a job. The HR took the matter to the MD, and my friend still had his way.
By the way, do you know that in some posts they need a graduate in many companies where you dont even understand what the need is there for graduates? There are graduates now applying for jobs of JO or Sweeper in MCGB because it pays.
So, now coming back to you, lets say there are a million candiates to have a job, how would you really find the right one? All are graduates,
Lets say there is clerical job is in railway, does being graduate in Chemistry offer better chances than being graduate in Arts? How much percentage might be the right percentatge for him to get a job? Having high marks in say Maths put him in better position than having better marks in Physics? They have an entrance exam for this position.. hahaha. isnt it stupidity? What aptitude will you search in exams for railway clerk? ITs same as having min qualification as Graduate for looking for sweeper
UNFORTUNATELY we are the land of graduates, we CHURN out graduates without require skill set, or aptitude. All the want is to be Graduates and then wait for a govt job to walk their way..
Interesting, Bank jobs and bureaucratic jobs are degraded as pencil pushing while maintaining dignity of Pakada selling in same breath!
As far as entitlement goes YES we are entitled to dignified and meaningful life and the state resources are to be used equally for the welfare of people. All these things are covered and guaranteed to the citizens of India by a piece of paper called constitution of India I hope you heard of it.
Now comes the part of skills, I don't know if you live in India or not but we churn more engineers than total newborns in many countries. So unless you consider 4 year technical course as unskilled job and pakda selling to be very skilled job I think you are not on very strong footing.
AI and statistics are given as example of specialization for getting job which is again not provided with facts that how many AI jobs were created by industry just to hide those insignificant numbers compared to millions of skilled engineers entering the work force. I happened to have worked a bit on AI so I know the number of jobs you are talking about.
Example of haldiram or bikanerwala is given which is again wrong, they didn't reach there but selling pakoda, infact I can quote you so many startup that failed miserably trying to sell food, so unless you think there is space for thousands of haldiram in market I again think that example was diversion tactic.
And finally by clever deflecting the topic from living wages and prime minister's indifference to reducing job the topic is cleverly diverted to dignity of labour. If you read again I nowhere said selling pakoda is wrong, infact I told you problems faced by them. Also that unrealistic and lala land you are living in come down to earth, I can show you thousands of examples in a small city where Gutkha sellers with tea and pakoda and cigarettes and what not are still in that same shop from past 40-50 years. NO THEY DON'T EARN 25k-30k.
Now answer on topic when economy is booming and more importantly world economy is growing at a fantastic pace why are those jobs reducing? And please before you claim anything from your high horse like jobs in AI or 25k for pakoda sellers please provide some back up cuz those numbers are laughable and kind of insulting to same pakoda sellers you are trying to dignify.