Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday called for a time-bound “education-to-employment roadmap” to bridge the gap between education and job creation in an effort to position the party as the primary champion of the Gen Z voters.
Speaking at the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting at Indira Bhawan, Kharge also accused the central government of failing the country’s youth through privatised higher education, exam scandals, and chronic unemployment, which hurt the poor the most.
Kharge’s youth outreach comes weeks after the massive student protests in Delhi and other parts of India, driven by frustration over exam paper leaks, forced the resignation of Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
“The time has come for the Congress to prepare a clear, comprehensive, and time-bound ‘education-to-employment roadmap’ for the youth, with a view to preparing for the future,” Kharge told the CWC meeting that is expected to discuss preparations for the upcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.
“Today, the youth are the primary focus of our collective concern,” he said.
Kharge recalled the contribution of previous Congress governments to push for IT, lower the voting age, expand school and college education in the years after independence.
“However, over the last 12 years, the Modi government has devastated the future of the youth. Instead of opening new schools, 94,000 schools have shut down in recent years. Driven by a race towards privatisation, higher education is becoming increasingly expensive and out of reach for ordinary families. Educational institutions are being taken over by RSS affiliates,” said Kharge.
The Congress president spoke about how young people who started looking for jobs after completing their education were confronted with issues such as paper leaks, recruitment exam scandals, and the resulting delays.
“The anger brewing among the youth across the country is not a recent phenomenon. This government has never spared the time to listen to them; instead, it has consistently sought temporary fixes to sidestep the problem. Consequently, they have been forced to take to the streets. The Congress party has incorporated their concerns into its agenda,” he said, highlighting Rahul Gandhi’s “Chhatron Ki Goonj” (Voice of Students) initiative as key to bringing student grievances to the national stage.