A Bridge to Learning

For many, the internet has levelled the playing field, both nationally and globally. One of these levellers is peer to peer access to information, an expansion of networks, and the ability to work or study remotely. For most digital literate youth, this has allowed for greater aspirations in standard of education and living.

Sleep Deprived Dreamers is a college application essay writing course started by Gen Z Shaurya Sinha, an Indian student at Stanford University along with his peers from Harvard, Yale, Princeton and the likes. The course capitalises on the trend of peer-to-peer learning with a community ranging from credible college entrants to Ivy league graduates.

Sleep Deprived Dreamers is a 4 week live and interactive college application essay writing course. BYJU’S offers educational content to students between grades 4-12, alongside tutoring for competitive exams.

Online learning platforms like BYJU’S, Khan Academy and Unacademy have pioneered a move to online learning by promoting an active culture of peer-to-peer formal and remedial learning. The platforms have diverse material ranging from classroom lessons to extracurricular interests such as sports and biking. These are presented as bite-sized pointers, mnemonics, and via other interactive mediums - the plus side always being the flexibility for students to engage with the content as and when they want.

While such digital platforms bridge the gap between students and learning, the ‘lost year’ also brought to the forefront glaring inequalities especially when it comes to access. As more and more classrooms moved to remote and online platforms, students, especially poor and disadvantaged, and those living away from the cities faced many hindrances such as low connectivity, unreliable internet and poor mobile access. There are however unique initiatives that sprung out of the pandemic who fulfilled this gap employing old and more prevalent technologies such as radio and television. India's national channels, Doordarshan and All India Radio broadcasted daily, educational content through their regional channels in collaboration with various state government institutions. To mimic school routines, the schedule of content would run early mornings and be repeated in the afternoons.

Invariably Upskilling

For the Indian Gen Z, developing skill sets matters even after formal learning. According to a workplace and careers survey conducted by the Varkey Foundation, a larger number of Gen Z (37%) placed importance in developing new skills on the job as compared to those for whom pay mattered most (10%). Young Indians are joining workforces where they see a greater scope for mentorship and broadening their horizons beyond formal education.

The recent launch of global retail giants like H&M and IKEA in India, has not only provided jobs and employment, but also avenues for growth opportunities within their massive infrastructures. These companies aggressively hire Indian youth and heavily invest in training them. For instance, at IKEA India, over 1000 new employees were hired in 2017, a year prior to the store opening in Hyderabad. Most new hires were youth from small towns around Hyderabad with scarce work experience. Over the one year, they were fully trained at IKEA in entry level jobs such as hospitality, customer care, logistics, assembly and so on, allowing them time to learn on the job and plan their futures in the company.

Start(up) Anywhere

With an increased trend in reverse migration comes a need for quality education in remote regions. Over the past few years, educational institutions have been disaggregating from the centre towards remote regions thus making quality education available to many more. The Himalayan Institute for Alternative Learning and the Naropa Fellowship in Ladakh are examples of institutions which are encouraging localised entrepreneurship.

Those who stayed back in search of opportunities in their hometowns have also been closing the employment gap with entrepreneurial endeavours. The once prestigious ‘MNC jobs’ are being traded in for startups in the hope of more learning and better prospects to grow. In mid 2020, during the nationwide lockdown, a number of app based startups emerged in Tier 2 & 3 cities incubated by young Genzers, ranging from logistics to delivery and other localised services.

In parallel the Government has also initiated campaigns and bolstered programmes like the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) to encourage job creations for Youth Migrant Entrepreneurs (YME). Prime Minister Modi’s Start-Up India Seed Fund in 2020 allocated nearly 1000 crores to help new startups grow in the country. In a bid to make India economically self-reliant, a youth vertical of the ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India) campaign challenged young people across India to help their communities become self-reliant through a model of entrepreneurship, especially in solving roadblocks to livelihood in post-COVID scenarios. The spirit of this initiative is represented by its slogan ~ ‘Of the youth, by the youth, for the youth’.

Beyond the Day Job

A majority of Gen Z globally feel that being socially or politically engaged makes up for a large part of their identity. Maybe having learnt from the dissatisfaction of their predecessors, or simply by virtue of being more privileged, Indian Gen Z are recognising a need to address what feeds their personal lives, by cultivating hobbies, side hustles to live beyond their day jobs. They also prefer working for institutions that share similar ethics and believe in causes they hold dear. For instance, fresh graduates and interns want to be associated with publications like the Gaysi Zine and Feminism in India that seek to champion and educate the masses on important matters around LGBTQIA+ and women from diverse milieus in a fun, less daunting manner. Young creatives are also using art to spread awareness on political and ecological issues.

The pandemic has been a life-altering event in the lives of Gen Z and as is true for any crisis, the young blood passionately comes to the fore to help and provide relief. Gen Z are finding ingenious ways of spearheading this with nothing but a smartphone and a tool they know how to best spin to their advantage – social media. This generation is volunteering after hours and with the help of hashtags, resource guides, fundraisers and a competent discretion on what information is worth sharing and amplifying, they are using their social networks to power a movement that is not just saving lives but helping sow the seed of something that may be a sustainable future.