Abstract

The region India, never in deed had sincere plan or followed a plan, for Holistic-Development of the country, otherwise it would have best-quality modern Education-System, in place, since independence or at least since 70s and 80s, when most of the countries were implementing changes or adopting changes in education, world over. Another important fact to support this situation has been the need of NEP2020 in 20s of 21^st CE. It has been a well-known fact that scenario in India as a whole regarding education-system is pathetic in rural areas, and India is a Country of Villages, that is it has been predominantly Rural, having (majorly traditional) agriculture-based economy. This research-effort has an objective to fulfil regarding putting-forth the actual views-aspirations of the youth in rural areas regarding cause and development of the region. This research-effort is descriptive and dialogic in nature, having empirically collected primary-data by stratified simple random sampling based on intensive-interaction with convenient-focused group of Educated Rural Youth (ERY), including secondary-data from available reports, journals, studies by national and international agencies so that general inferences could be reached. Firstly, it has to be accepted that there is a problem of unemployment due to an intentionally neglected education system, having non-skills set based curriculum for addressing the issues of Life-&-Living in the region.

Keywords:  Sincere, Holistic-Development, Quality, Modern, Education-System, Intentionally-Neglected

Introduction

It has been a well-known scenario that in India, there are inequalities between Rural-Urban areas, which have increased in last 03 decades, and growing drastically. There are miniscule pockets of (prosperity) development and modern Public-Administration system, as well as, imposed-&-forced spread of Quality-less Education-Network to fulfil some vested-interests. Indian economy is 67% Rural and, 50-53% of workforce is engaged in agriculture-sector, whereas, in total 70% has been engaged in agriculture-based livelihood, but on the contrary larger chunk of agriculture work-force has been shifted from being Cultivators to Agricultural-labour; therefore, India is rural-economy and Agrarian-Society by Labour-Force distribution, still, the growth of this sector remained around 2.6% roughly from 1950 to 2015.

Similarly, real Annual Economic Growth-Rate (GR), since 1950 to 2015, remained 4.4%, whereas Industrial-GR remained 4.4%, inflation at 7% and BOP deficit remained hovering around 01-03% of GDP, also, annual population growth-rate gradually declined to 1.6%. Actually economic-GR has been 3%, 6% and 7%, for up to 1980, after 1981 and since 2000, respectively. Too much focus on Self-Reliance (industrially) and Import-Substitution, as well as, privatisation – emphasis on Fiscal-Prudence and Subsidy-Cuts for poor & farmers, resulted in increased agrarian-distress, widening of inequalities, and thus agriculture sector (Rural-Areas) suffered. In India, it is a well-known fact, and as per researchers and literature in public-domain, Economic-Inequality is concentrated in rural-areas and it is higher than East-Asian Economies, whereas, Education-Inequality and Social-Inequality is worse than inequality in Latin-America(Social-Security is only for 7-8% of work-force employed in organized-sector whereas, 93% (who are employed in unorganized sector) are out of the security-net of social-security).

Review of Literature

India remained embroiled in achieving Low-Growth with Stability, Widening-Inequalities. Bismal Poverty- Reduction and Limited Social- Development. Simultaneously, there has been vested effort to form Nation-State out of Old-Civilizational Region (having stress on Traditional-Backward Milieu) and the introduction of alien concept of Modern-Democracy (having problem of Divisive-&-Adversarial Political-System, therefore inflicted with creating obstacles for Public-Welfare Work, thereby limiting Public-Investment having public-externalities; but on the other-hand, it remained platform for popular-demagogs’ vote-bank policies option for public-spending on redistributive-programs, affirmation-actions, reverse-caste benefit-system, ultimately limiting market-&-Governance oriented public/Govt actions), with fragmented social-structure based on caste-creed-religion-race-region. The population of the region forced themselves to change with context to these situations-Milieu; ‘…the changes has already been happening way-back can be substantiated by the fact that if there is any change in the cropping-pattern in primary-sectors then it is mainly due to structural-shift in Consumption and, Diversification of consumption on account of Urbanizations (& demonstration-effect on Rural-Population), media and EG, as per various researchers like R Radhakrishnan & C Rani (1992), P Kumar (1998) and KN Murthy(2000)… similarly, mechanization and overall-growth in agriculture and agriculture-infrastructure also contributed to reduction of unmindful-traditional food-consumption and energy (calories) required… on the other-hand sub-separation of agriculture-sector into Commercial-Crop, Livestock, Forestry, fisheries etc., also grown, but overall management of this sector remained Chaotic-Exploitative… which has given the growth a serious slowness due to lack of element of Respect-Dignity along with absence of Human-Capital (the modern Knowledge-pool; this situation is evident i.e., in the presence of  knowledge-acquired Agri-scientists and students of agriculture with vast-majority of ignorant Farmers)…in government policies-programs… furthering rural-urban segregation…. Technical-changes in modern Agri-activities has already made this sector Knowledge-driven rather than Traditional or Experience-based activity, thus highlighting the failure of systems, till date, to make it knowledge-acquired Farmers based (technology-&-knowledge remained concentrated to miniscule farmers and miniscule geographical-area) … Only the level of Agri-Production has increased in India (Productivity is still Low and Problematic along with Poor-Quality) … whereas, plight of Farmers-Fields remained dismal i.e., in place of Land-Labour-Capital, …  Knowledge-Skills Set is Main-Factor, in which region Laggard behind’. (Tripathi & Prasad, 2009).

The development of Indian-Economy, beyond Growth-Progress, is dependent on Young-population and subsequent low-dependency ratio; ‘…but long-term other challenges remained significant, including discrimination (of all types) and inequalities, along with inadequate Agri-infra, miniscule non-Agri employment-opportunities, rural-to-urban migration, and most importantly highly inadequate and quality-less basic-&-higher education… The economy of a country is governed by Culture (Work-Culture, Work-Ethics, General-Milieu and Daily-life Dealing, etc.,.), Laws, History, Religion & Society (all these are indicative of Actual Quality of Population / Masses residing in a region)… India failed to refine all (Backward – Traditional) these elements (the vital non-economic factors, resulting in dominantly-imposing on well-intentioned Economic-Factors)… Based on the results of ANOVA and F-Test, it has been revealed by results that there has been a significant difference among contributions of 03-Sectors in the overall GDP and, economy is developing as well as striving hard to become Developed-Economy (on account of India’s service-sector share in GDP (which is not much when compared to Developed-World))… Underperformance of service-sector since 2010 has been due to mis-match between sector-wise GDP figures and sector-wise employment figures… for e.g., combination of Agri-sector in GDP is around 25%, but around 50% of combined workforce is employed by it, whereas, 40% of Industries share is there in GDP and it employs around 30% of workforce in the country, however, there is 45% share of service-sector in GDP but it employs only around 25%of workforce,… This mismatch is due to quality-less education-curriculum and absence of re-education…’. (Reddy, 2019.)

Education should be made main focus by Policy-Makers, ‘… apt to mention here the China and other small countries like Vietnam, they used to spend more on education…, even in 1980s… and in these countries Literacy-Rates were much higher than India at that time… Any type of inequality (most of which is present in India) can be tackled by majorly investing in Education-&-Health along with other public-infra, as an effective-measure… One of the numerous factors on which India’s Growth-&-Development depended has been Quality-less Broad-based Education… which is also hampering the intergenerational mobility and, thus created education-inequality and income-productivity inequality (wealth-inequality) … that is why India is having an Inability to pull more of its workforce away from non-productive sectors towards more-productive and better-paying employment, …therefore aggravating the challenge… Also, Wealth-Redistribution through Wealth-Tax is essential restructuring… in the form of Super-Tax on very-wealthy is going to be a good place to start… and thus provide fiscal-source to enhance spending on essential social-expenditure of Education-Health;… which is very low to countries having similar Income-Level…it has been because of higher economic-inequality attributed to differences in Education in India (here difference in private – public schools as well as primary, secondary and tertiary education has been taken)…’ (Bharti & Lucas, 2024.)

India and Policymakers remained obsessive with Favour-Against dichotomy related to adopting Best-practices from developed-world and, intentionally remained focussed on GDP, Growth and One-Upmanship, thereby totally neglecting the behavioural-Aspect of the Population… The High growth-rate and spending on Infrastructure that facilitates ease-of Life-Living and doing-business in the developed-world, has been only the one-side of story, there is another layer of reality (Non-Economic Factors ) which these (GDP, Growth, etc.) do not bring to forth or seen by Developing-world like India, …actually, beyond GDP-GR there is positive set of factors (though ‘Behavioural’) called here as Gross Domestic Behaviour (GDB), which is the ‘software ‘layer of society and, thus symbiotically interacts with hard-material of infrastructure and other physical-inputs… The GDP and GDB have umbilical-ties, … The well-ordered landscape of Developed-World rest on External-Grid of Excellent and Humane Infrastructure, that maximizes Life-Living chances for all (the Properly-Educated), thereby guaranteeing the higher efficiency of Civilized-&-Productive Society… Also, there has been an invisible-Infrastructure, which has been inculcated in the masses through education-&-empathy, i.e., inner-discipline. This value of ingrained-empathy and inner-discipline make everyone participate in society responsibly, that is why public spaces-places are kept clean-tidy and well-managed, and not just by machines-professionals;… cleanliness, traffic-rules, etc originates in mind… therefore changes are needed in our civic-behaviour by r&p Education… Education-Curriculum is the Key: Civic-Consciousness can be and must be taught-&-Learnt… Enforcement is also vital… If we are to become Viksit Bharat by 2047, we must pay as much attention to GDB as we do to GDP and Share-Market… This absence of ‘civic-faculty’ in India is so settled a fact that it is often taken to be in our nature (and we do not even recognize such aberrations in our daily-behaviour)… and we are ignorant of our (rustic-rude-backward) behaviour… whereas, civic-values and complying behaviour has been seen as the invisible-markers that have tangible economic-effects…’ (Purie, 2025).

Objective of the Study

Being empirical and based on primary and secondary-data, as well as, time and resources available, the following 02 objectives have been framed and achieved by this research effort.

First Objective being to bring-out the non-discussed reality of rural-areas and issues. Whereas, the Second Objective has been to put forth the aspirations and actual causes of backwardness oh Indian Rural-Areas through intensive interactions with Educated Rural Youth (ERY).

Methodology

This research has been Descriptive and Exploratory in nature, having elements of Grounded-Research and Dialogic-Approach, remained relied on secondary and Primary-Data.

Universe of the Study: Educated Rural Youth of the area having Higher-Secondary or UG / PG education, in the age-group of 18-25 years.

Sample Frame: All the ERY in the HEI of Rural-Area.

Sample-Size: Considering the limited time-schedule, the researcher has chosen convenient focussed group, including Stratified-Random Simple sampling method, and intensively interacted with 31 ERY.

Instrument: A thoroughly discussed Questionnaire-cum-Schedule having 10 open – close ended, as well as, Likert and other scale based pertinent questions, have been prepared.

Geographical-Area of Study: Being in close-proximity, sub-division, Dehra and Jawalaji of District Kangra in Himachal Pradesh have been taken for this study.

Time-Period / Span: Study is based on Primary-Data, collected from Respondents directly during March-April of 2025.

Data-Presentation & Analysis: Data-collected and analysis-evaluation done have been presented using various graphical-tools available for statistics.

Data-Presentation & Evaluation

It has come to fore that ERY, who is the respondents in this study emphasized that there is the problem of Unemployment, when asked about education-employment scenario in the region as well as country as whole.

Table 1.1:  Issue& Level of Unemployment among Educated Youth of Age-Group 18 – 25 Years

Sr.no.	Issue	Yes	False	True	% of Respondents
1.	Problem of Unemployment	98% (02%DKn)	–	–
2.	Govt Data of 6 -10% of Unemployment in India	–	90%	10%
		Actual Unemployment-Rate
3.	If False, how much is the Unemployment-Rate among ERY	10 – 15% 20 – 25% 30 – 35% 40 – 45% 50 – 55% 60 – 65% 70 – 75%             90% 80 – 85%             10%
*DKn-Do not Know Source: Primary-Data by Author, March-April 2025.

It is clear from the table given above that Respondents being on the ground, know the reality that there is now the problem of Unemployment among ERY, which was not the problem earlier decade ago. Similarly, 90% of respondents have clearly mentioned that government-data about unemployment-rate of 6-10% is false and, actually the problematic scenario is much worse, and therefore, actual unemployment-rate should be around 70 to 80% among ERYs in the age-group 18-25 years.

Fig 1.1: Problem of Unemployment, Govt’s Unemployment-Rate & Actual

Source: Primary-Data by Author, March-April 2025.

On the other hand, ERY stressed that there is an urgent need to redefine Employment-Employed and Unemployment-Unemployed, especially for the age-groups 17 – 20year, 20 – 25 year and 26 – 30 years. Similarly, they stressed that, subsequently, person getting₹500 for 300 days should be considered as Unemployed, and Unemployed-Family (2+2 HH) should be those who have ₹1100 per day for 300 days, whereas, those families should be considered Family of Employed (2+2 HH) who have ₹1400 for 365 days, when in all cases Education, Transportation, Medical Facilities & Ration is provided by the system.

Table 1.2: Redefining Employed – Unemployed (age group 18 – 25 years)

sr.no.	Issue	Classification	% of Respondents
1.	Unemployed Person	₹500 for 300 Days ₹500 for 250 Days ₹500 for 180 Days	90% 10%
2.	Unemployed HH of 2+2	₹650 for 300 Days ₹1100 for 300 Days (₹1200 or 300 Days when children attain the age of 13)	10% 90% (100%)
3.	Employed HH of 2+2	₹1400 for 365 Days (₹2000 for 365 Days when children attain the age of 13)	100% (100%)
Source: Primary-Data by Author, March-April 2025.

 

It is clear from the table given above here, that if a person (especially ERY) have ₹500 for 300 days then this is unemployment, and should be considered so for 65 days further if person get daily at the rate of ₹500 per-day, similarly, if a HH(of 2+2) have ₹1100 (500+250+125+125) for 300 days, or further 65 days, should be conserved as Unemployed-HH, whereas, Employed-HH (of 2+2) should be those who have at least ₹1400 (500+300+300+300) per day (₹2000 when children attain the age of 13) for 365 Days.

Fig 1.2: Redefining Employed ERY and Unemployed – Employed HHs

Source: Primary-Data by Author, March-April 2025.

It is explicit in figure above that population know what should be the definition of employed-HH, and what all are needed to be redefined by the system.

ERYs of the region as well think of India to be like other Developed-Nation (well-organized & managed, Aesthetically High, having values of Respect-Dignity-Mindfulness-Empathy). Following is the data collected in this regard.

Table 1.3: Causes of Negative-Milieu in the Region (India)

sr.no.	Cause-Fact & Remedy	Response in Percent
1.	Education-Curriculum is Inefficient-Incompetent	99%
2.	The Systems are Inefficient (Behavioural Aspect/Daily-Life)	95%
3.	Social Behaviour Pattern is Rustic-Religious and Old-Traditions Based	92%
4.	Elders are needed to be Counselled in for Civic-Sense & Consequences	95%
5.	Govt Spaces-Places should be made Well-Managed	90%
6.	Awareness Program by Religious-Storytellers on Channels about Civilized-Behaviour in Contemporary / Modern World	90%
Source: Primary-Data by Author, March-April 2025.

It is clearly emphasized as per table given above here, that education, which is the only feasible way of inculcating Life-Living skills in human-beings, has been again looked up to for remodifying behavioural-aspect required in the region / India and, above all its failure is evident in chaotic-disorganized life in the region; similarly, the Systems in place are also required to be made up to the mark by Capacity-Building and enough Personnel-Management. On the other hand, non-economic factors also play important disruptive-role in failing the economic-policies; in India, they are the main-culprit, here it has been emphasized by the Respondents, that in the region there is Old-tradition based rural-milieu, and ‘politics-&-religion’ has been really an ‘opium’ for masses including religion-based media and, thereof traditional-storyteller; respondents also pointed-out that at least govt-offices / places should be efficient and properly-managed so that people at least know how-&what of thing by observing these well-managed entities.

Fig 1.3: Causes & Facts about Places-Spaces in the region

Source; Primary-Data by Author, March-April 2025.

The awareness-level and emphasis on issues of importance by the respondents, for rural-development has been depicted in the figure above. The non-economic factors are area of concern even among ERY, even the unlearning-relearning of civic-sense and consequences among the elders have been the issue.

Findings

• There is unemployment among educated-youth (18-25 year) in rural-areas of the region.
• The main cause of unemployment is inefficient-incompetent education-curriculum.
• The social-environment and milieu is highly rustic-&-traditions based in rural-areas.
• The ‘system’ in the region is backward-&-inefficient.
• Government spaces-places are highly dis-organized / mis-managed.
• The region is unaware of modern-life & living for rural-areas and religious-storytellers are unable to provide answers to plethora of issues concerning chaos-disruptions.
• There has been an issue of noncompliant-behaviour / ill civic-sense among elders in the families.
• The Emphasis also wason ‘to follow Best-Practices of European/USA/New-Zealand System’.

Suggestions

Redefining Employment-Unemployment among educated-rural youth for the age-group 18-20 and 20-25 years and immediately over-haul the education system-curriculum, so that relationship could be established between Education and Employment-Unemployment.

Capability-Capacity building of ‘the systems’ (society and public-entities) in place in rural-area.

Govt spaces-places should be well-managed so that these inspire masses regarding life-living and modern civic-sense; it should be done by cutting-down salaries by 20% and employing required actual number of personnel and increasing thereby the accountability of public-entities.

There should be awareness-programs for elders to unlearn-relearn about civic-sense and consequences of rustic and valueless life-living, as it has been popularly observed by social-scientists that when in family elders in rural-areas know about the negative-results / consequences the behaviour pattern changes drastically.

The religious-storytellers must put efforts regarding making masses aware about civic-sense in modern life-living for rural-areas.

Conclusion

India as a region is required to come out of its ancient-shell of rustic-backward-traditions based daily life-living, and bring about changes in educational-curriculum so that negative non-economic factors could be made weaker thereby bringing actual development of rural areas and participation of Educated Rural Youth (ERY).

 References

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Statements & Declarations:

Peer-Review Method: This article underwent double-blind peer review by two external reviewers.

Competing Interests: The author/s declare no competing interests.

Funding: This research received no external funding.

Data Availability: Data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Licence: A Study on the Available Alternative Option of Redirected-Action for Region Development © 2025 by Praveen Prakash is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Published by ShodhManjusha.

Ethical Statement: This article is based on secondary data, publicly available information, and/or conceptual analysis. No human or animal subjects were involved, and therefore, ethical approval was not required.