Technical education, that is, education in some art or craft is the crying need of the hour. We are living in the times when old concepts of education have undergone a change. We are not in need of liberal education as it was in the pre-independence days. We need skilled workers. Manufactured goods worth crores of rupees are being imported every year. There is dearth of food. Our industries are yet in infancy. We need engineers to man them. We need mechanized farming to increase the output of corn. All this is only possible if we give a technical turn to our education and if skilled labour is made available.
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At present there are very few technical institutions in the country. And the reason is not far to seek. Most of our young men have a sort of prejudice against all types of manual labour. They prefer a job in some office to doing work with their hands. They think that manual labour is degrading. Unemployment, therefore, stares them in the face. The jobs of clerks in offices too, are limited. All educated young men cannot be absorbed10 in this vocation.
Education in arts or crafts will serve a very useful purpose. It will help our youth to make an independent living. They can set up their own little workshops. This type of education will also solve the unemployment problem to some extent.
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We must, however, guard against one thing. Technical education in order to be of real use should be based on a good literary education at least up to matriculation standard. It has been seen that an educated craftsman has better chances of success in life than an illiterate one.
India is rich in mineral resources but most of them have not been tapped. The government is keen to utilise this wealth. More and more technical institutions are, therefore, being opened. A large number of technical hands are pouring out of our universities every year. It is a happy sign of the times but unfortunately our industries have not been able to absorb this ever-increasing number of technical hands. Already the number of unemployed technical hands has gone up. It is feared that if some quick measures are not taken to develop our industries, the government will be forced to restrict admission to the technical colleges.
The work of technical training should go hand in hand with the development of industries. In this alone lies the real solution of the problem. The government, too is alive to this. It is hoped that more and more factories will be opened in the near future in private and public sector to give employment to engineers of the country. It will be a criminal waste of country’s intelligence if our young engineers are forced to migrate to foreign countries only because the country cannot provide them with proper means of living.