Trivandrum, Dec. 6: The Kerala Chief Minister, Mr. C. Achutha Menon, yesterday urged for greater attention to post-SSLC non-collegiate education than it had received so far. This would help produce a new generation of really useful, energetic and hard working boys and girls who could do the jobs entrusted with them for the building up of the country. This would also give the much needed relief to the universities,” he said. The Chief Minister was inaugurating the five-day inter-university youth festival here sponsored by the Kerala University Students Union. About 200 delegates from 20 universities are participating in the festival. Mr. Menon said the rush for university education was mainly due to the fact that job opportunities were dependent on the educational qualification of the applicant. He said it was necessary to disabuse the minds of the people at large of the real value of a degree. They should consciously and systematically try to “denigrate” or “debunk” degrees. The employment agencies, Government or private, should set no value on degrees, but give recognition to real attainments and experience. He confessed that Government departments and public sector undertakings which insisted on degrees while prescribing qualifications, were the worst sinners in this respect. The recruitment policy was such that the graduate always got preference over the non-graduate even for clerical jobs and this state of affairs had to be remedied, he said. Mr. Menon also wanted the opportunities for technical training available to SSLC holders to be expanded. There was much truth in the complaint that holders of ITI certificates and diplomas were not really skilled but were only clerks with technical certificates.
