Our Educated Youth: Sandwiched Between “Higher Qualification” and “Upper Age Limit.”
Umran Hussain
In a very recent conundrum of an employment notification that called upon only candidates having 10+2 qualification for more than fight thousand class fourth posts in the Union Territory Of Jammu and Kashmir, the selected and finally left out graduates and post graduates had to give us for want of a lower qualification for the said positions.
The graduates and postgraduates who had applied for those positions were made to sit in the examination and a strict guideline was never put in place so that they could not even dare to appear in the examination.
Initially, the JKSSB had informed through their employment notice that only candidates with 10+2 qualification shall apply for those class fourth positions but the ambiguity and vagueness of the notification didn’t stop the candidates with higher qualifications from applying for it. Every sane educated youth would apply by submitting only his 10+2 certificates and that is what thousands of candidates did.
Down on their luck, after such candidates cleared the written test and figured out in the provisional selection list, the recruiting board started getting tougher and issued a series of notification to such candidates and warned them that their candidature will be canceled if they don’t reveal their original higher qualifications.
Finally, time and law took its own course and the heartbroken highly qualified candidates were shown the door.
On 21st October, the Jammu and Kashmir Services Selection Board again issues a notification inviting applications from the unemployed youth for the posts of Sub Inspector requisitioned by Home department but again to the suprise of our unemployed youth, the said posts require candidates with a maximum age of 28 for the open merit category.
The tiring cycle of protests seeking justice again started in Srinagar which demanded relation in the age as most of the candidates have crossed this age of “seeking employment.”
Such notifications add more misery to our unemployed youth, as they find themselves stuck between the devil and the deep sea. A very tough and miserable situation.
A Short Story
“I once appeared in an interview for the post of Assistant Registrar in the newly established central university of Kashmir. I received a letter inviting me for an interview and for obvious reasons. I had that eligibility. I was taken back when the babu’s in the panel informed me that I was too young for such a bigger position in a university. I was asked more than ten questions and I proved myself by answering each one of them.” Said Umar Gani while talking to The Kashmir Radar.
Sometimes you are too young for a position, sometimes are too old, sometimes you ain’t eligible because you have not been to a college and sometimes you are too much educated.
