Essay on Remedies for Youth Unrest – The problem of the youth must be understood in connection with the relationships of the students with parents, teachers, politicians, police authorities, student union leaders, university authorities, and the values, traditions, needs, motivations and aspirations of the students.
Patterns of these variables are found to be associated with the tension in the college-going youth. A few suggestions may be made here to minimise the youth unrest.
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1. System of Education:
A thorough overhauling for our education system is necessary to help the students to face the problems and challenges of life. No hotch-potch change in education would suffice. But education requires a comprehensive planning and an integral approach.
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This would bridge the gap between what the students actually experience and what is taught to them in schools and colleges.
Colleges and universities should make proper provision for (a) adequate boarding and lodging facilities, (b) better libraries and reading rooms and laboratories, (c) enough facilities for recreation and extra-curricular activities (d) seminar and tutorial, system.
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2. Employment Opportunities:
Efforts should be made to provide opportunities for the students to offer courses in agriculture, engineering, business management, commerce, medicine, etc. The spirit of self-reliance must be created and the students should be encouraged to set up business and cottage industries of their own.
3. Provision for Leisure-time Activities:
Students should not be allowed to idle their time. Hobby clubs and workshops catering to painting, music, photography, stamp collection, swimming, etc. may be established in colleges. Indoor games, dramatic performances, excursions and picnics, functions catering to the interest of fine arts and literature must be encouraged among them.
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4. Economic Difficulties:
Poor and the needy students should be given financial help through scholarships, free ships, loan scholarships, free hostel facilities, stipends, etc. so that they do not drop out of schools and colleges. The programme of ‘earn while you learn’ needs to be well organised.
5. Discipline:
Students should be assisted in developing self-discipline for it is long lasting than the imposed discipline. Acts of indiscipline should be dealt with sternly, but of course, humanistically. The teachers must play an important role in this respect.
6. Able Leadership:
Students very badly need able and efficient leadership. In any democratic set-up leadership is very important. Leadership training programmes under supervision should be introduced in colleges. Politicians must not be allowed to misguide the students.
7. Role of Political Parties:
Political parties should be kept out of the college campuses. The students should have political awareness, but their active participation in politics would spoil the peaceful atmosphere of the campus. The student leaders, teachers and university authorities must make joint venture to save education and campus from power politics.
8. Students’ Participation:
As Dr. V.K.R.V. Rao, Ex-Union Minister for Education has suggested (in his address to the Commonwealth Inter-University Conference in New Delhi, Jan. 1970) ‘Students the world over have become restive and are demanding a Voice in the affairs of universities and a fair share in running the machine and in decision-taking.
This demand cannot be evaded for long except at great peril’. In brief, the students should be given ample opportunities to take part in the administrative bodies of the university.
Proper Communication between Students and Teachers:
The communication gap between the students and teachers should be bridged. The teacher must not look at the students with suspicion. He must have confidence in them. He must act as their friend, guide and philosopher.
The teacher-student ratio must be reduced. Every student must get due attention of the teacher. More than this, basically the teacher must change his attitude towards the students and the profession.
Conclusion:
It is true that there is youth unrest. But it is a part of the national malady. The student as a class can play a vital role in any attempt to change the national scene,. Student activism is positively anti- establishment. As Pater Worsley says, it is quite obvious. If/the establishment, by the same logic tends to be anti-student it will create an extremely unfortunate situation.
Asking the students to behave, without the authorities doing anything to solve their problems, is not only unjust to the students but will further alienate them from the authorities.
The student is a force. He is not a citizen of tomorrow, but he is very much a citizen of today. He has a participatory role to play in the task of nation-building. What he wants is not a dozen of advice but he wants to see the models to be emulated by him.
Events, crises and challenges of constructive activity have shown that he can rise to the occasion and meet the challenges of reconstruction. In the changing society where the authority stands discredited, the youth shall triumph and usher in an era of social change. The student power has shown that it is a potential factor that can bring about vast socio-political changes.