24/08/09

myths around english

some myths need to be busted:

myth no.1: english is going to get you the best jobs in the future.

the truth is, there isn't going to be any growth in the best jobs available in the country in the future. not for another twenty years, at least. consult any astrologer or goldman sachs on what would happen beyond twenty years. the best jobs in the country are in the organized sector: jobs that offer both good pay and benefits and security. those jobs have actually decreased in number in the last twenty years and will continue to do so.

of the future, there is only one kind of growth that can be predicted with any degree of certainty: growth in the number of the self-employed (who already number 55% of the workforce in the country).
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12 comments:

SS said...

kuffir:

I don’t mean to make a hackneyed truth-is-subjective kind of statement (nor do I actually disagree with you). However. I’m increasingly beginning to believe that the answers you get depend on the questions you ask. That the statistics you get depend on your elicitation methods (and target groups).

The British Council (for whom the English language is a global money-spinner) recently commissioned a study of the market for English in India and China. http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-india-china-elt-event

The findings are interesting. Whether or not there are jobs for it, there certainly seems to be a great demand for English.

10:55 am
kuffir said...

ss,

nor do i disagree with you:) the demand for english and 'best jobs' are two discrete issues.

the data i am quoting is from the govt of india, part of the data released before budget by the finance ministry every year. it is a couple of years old but i'm not quoting here other reports, estimates by the planning commission or various ministries in the last five years or so. i've seen projections which see an increase in agrculture related employment from the planning commission- estimates of growth in that area in the next twenty years. you'll realize what kind of jobs are those..and what kind of non-growth they expect in organized sector jobs.

best jobs- in india or in any other developing/developed country are those which offer both: good pay+benefits and security of tenure. organized sector jobs (jobs in govt, public sector and large private corporates which are backed by organized capital and face organized labour). growth, if any, of those jobs in the future in those corporates and in govt too shall be of a contractual/temporary nature with smaller pay packets and no guarantees of security. and these jobs constitute only 7% of total jobs (and going down) in the country- they used to be around 10% in the 70s or so.

thanks for the link- but you notice it is about 'market for english training' and not about 'market or jobs for people trained in english'.

even the market for english trainers (if you noticed it is estimated to be around 3.2 million people)- the estimate of average pay is 120$ per month.. which is far below what the lowest grade employee in the organized sector gets. with no security or any other benefits.

'the answers you get depend on the questions you ask'.

i wasn't asking these questions now, ss :) these figures have been at the back of my mind for long- i do read some stuff on these (policy, economy etc) issues- sometimes, i spend very long hours scouring govt websites. i wasn't even asking any *related* questions even when i first went in search of this data, some years ago. and there is much more evidence out there.

i am raising these issues now because i'd genuinely like to understand what are the reasons driving the growth or non-growth of english in india. anyone who provides new insights,or even challenges my views- id welcome their inputs.

11:53 am
Karmonda said...

In what language will the self employed people communicate. Esperanto??

1:24 pm
Diwakar Sinha said...

this way or that...it always helps if you know good english.

2:18 pm
SS said...

kuffir:

I guess I should clarify: my comment was in response to the "myth" you mentioned at the beginning of the post, not what you'd written about growth/non-growth in jobs.

>>the demand for english and 'best jobs' are two discrete issues.

I'm afraid not. The best jobs are (largely)those "facilitated" by a knowledge of English. English is an invisible, tacitly agreed upon requirement.

>>you notice it is about 'market for english training' and not about 'market or jobs for people trained in english'.

The value of training is directly dependent upon the value of the product/skill it provides. In my view the demand for training in English is a very good indicator of which jobs are the most sought after. Look at the sectors in which this demand exists. Training is of course an intangible - it's not easy to estimate its direct influence on employment generation. But I'm pretty sure the "best jobs" involve English as core skill. The job description per se may/may not say so ...

Also, people who have access to/control over English necessarily speak from a position of power. Their dismissal of the "myth" of English simply does not carry the same credibility that the "perception" of the importance of English in the job market does. (And this isn't a personal remark. At all.)

3:43 pm
kuffir said...

ss,

'I'm afraid not. The best jobs are (largely)those "facilitated" by a knowledge of English. English is an invisible, tacitly agreed upon requirement.'

please look at the link to jobs in the organized sector job. more than 60% of those jobs are in the central govt, state govts, public sector.

tell me if you see english playing a role there.

and in the pivate organized sector- do you really think english is the language of progress there? industry in india is mostly about communities more than anything else.


'The value of training is directly dependent upon the value of the product/skill it provides. In my view the demand for training in English is a very good indicator of which jobs are the most sought after. Look at the sectors in which this demand exists.'

what jobs? the whole point of my post is that there are no jobs. more than half of india is self employed.. don't let whatever few jobs you see in the bpo sector tell you that they're the whole picture..bpo jobs and careers are very uncertain and they should never be categorized among the best jobs. and there are not more than a million of them (for nearly 480 million working adults. what the demand indicates is what a psychologist needs to tells us.

'Their dismissal of the "myth" of English simply does not carry the same credibility that the "perception" of the importance of English in the job market does.'

yes, the truth lies in perceptions. as i said earlier, only a good psychologist will be able to tell us what this is about.

4:15 pm
SS said...

kuffir:

I agree that the bpo bubble is misleading. And you’re probably right that there isn’t going to be any growth in jobs. But does this mean English ceases to be vital?

And there is no role for English in the organized sector? Hello? I wonder why, then, the NKC is crying itself hoarse over the importance of English in its recommendations to the PM. (http://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/downloads/recommendations/LanguageLetterPM.pdf)

Surely their vision isn’t blinkered by the bpo sector?!

I don’t think of the services industry as a whole as having the best jobs. But what’s to psycho-analyze? Aren’t people always going to be attracted to higher pay, glamour, perks?

More than half of India is self-employed: you make that sound like a homogeneous sector. There are the small businesses, the independent craftspersons, service providers and there are the educated self-employed. Do they all have the same rate of success? And does English have no role in that discrepancy?

Look, I don’t think of English as some magic wand that will create great jobs. But the fact is that the route to those jobs is largely through English. I think it’s unnatural that success and employability should be measured by a language not of the masses. But if some people are benefiting from it, then it’s just unfair. Because I do not see why a poor peasant who commits local theft shouldn’t understand the language of the police/law-court/newspapers - at least any less than Ramalinga Raju.

6:37 pm
kuffir said...

ss

'And you’re probably right that there isn’t going to be any growth in jobs.'

not probably, ss. and it's not me. that's the way the goi sees it, the planning commission sees it. a whole lot of economists see it. there isn't going to be any growth in jobs as e understand them, definitely not in the 'best jobs' as we understand them. people who are talking about best jobs are still taking about older paradigms, in the indian context.

here's something you know instinctively: india's population shall grow to 1.4 crores or so in another fifteen years- do you think any large corporate would feel the need to guarantee the kind of security that people in the organized sector now enjoy? there are too many engineers, mbas out there to pick from.

'And there is no role for English in the organized sector?'

my evidence, and this post, is essentially about the future- when there is no question of growth in 'best jobs', there is no point in english helping anyone get one.

secondly, i pointed out that over 60% of the jobs are in the govt and public sector- which means, if you think history is relevant (it is only of academic interest now, in this post), none of those jobs placed a premium on 'english' as a requirement..most of those in the north got in on the basis of their knowledge in hindi, not english, which was mostly never tested (not just in state govts in the north but also in the central govt)...and in the south and elsewhere, the knowledge of the regional languages mattered more.

as for the private sector- people assume a lot about how communication happens in the private sector..i could talk about my own experiences working with large private corporates in hyderabad- but i don't think, i will.. i'd rather link to any study, if i find it, in the future.

but as i said, how people got those 'best jobs' in the past is only of academic interest- the future isn't going to be the same.

'Surely their vision isn’t blinkered by the bpo sector?'
i think even the iits/iims etc are a product of a blinkered vision- i am the wrong person to answer that question. but i wish someone would cut their (the nkc's) spiel short and ask them: what kind of jobs? where? what kind of security etc? how many of those jobs would qualify as 'best jobs' as we know them now? i wish someone would call their bluff. i wish at least one of the nkc members had the courage to stand up and not talk the kind of nonsense they talk.

'More than half of India is self-employed: you make that sound like a homogeneous sector. There are the small businesses, the independent craftspersons, service providers and there are the educated self-employed. Do they all have the same rate of success? And does English have no role in that discrepancy?'

this question too is not relevant, outside the context of this post, in the sense that english is being offered as a passport to the 'best jobs', not as a route to self-employment.

but still, as you've raised the topic- i've written upon the 'infornal sector', directly and otherwise, in too many posts. my interest in it is very old, not just because i'm self-employed,but because most of india's obcs, muslims, dalits depend on the informal sector for their livelihood- i wouldn't like to repeat myself here, so i'd rather request you to look at one of my old posts.

if you click the 'informal sector' category on the sidebar of this blog- you'll find posts about how people who work in the informal sector need too many things, not just english.

8:04 pm
Madhat said...

You do me great disservice, Kuffir. I was not talking about English as a gateway to the "best jobs", whatever that is (isn't 'best' a subjective term).
I believe English is the gateway to vast amounts of knowledge. The chinese and the russians learn and work in their respective languages, but yet their best scientists/professionals/elites learn the English language simply because it exposes them to a more richer and global source of knowledge.
I firmly believe that it is knowledge that will empower the people and see the enforcement of the mother tongue as the mode of education as a impediment to that empowerment. I would go even so far as to say that it is a conspiracy to deny people their rights.
You and I would never have met or understood eachother if we knew only our respective mother tongues. In fact, even if we had just a working knowledge of English, we would not have been able to exchange ideas.

10:26 pm
kuffir said...

apurva,

whatever gave you the idea that this post is an offshoot of our little discussion?..oh god. this is not at all about what you said.

i'd been doing a series of posts on english, starting with this post and this.

i've been trying to respond to a certain idea articulated by dalit bahujan intellectuals like chandrabhan prasad and kancha ilaiah- that the bahujans should embrace english and reject indian languages. that, and a few other issues springing up from the state sponsored caste system in indian education - those have been issues i've been grappling with in these posts, (and other posts in the category 'education' and 'language'.

see, you need to check in on this blog, once in a while :)

10:53 pm
Madhat said...

Yikes, I do read your posts. And I remember reading all that. Just slipped out of my mind..

11:42 pm
kuffir said...

apurva,

but some of the things that you said in your previous comment- those might be discussed in future posts :)

11:49 pm

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