Why are millennials shifting towards creative careers

Mon Dec 09 2019

Why are millennials shifting towards creative careers

There has been a sharp rise in takers for offbeat courses but most parents continue to be sceptical about letting their children take the creative route, reports Sharangee Dutta

The Indian education system has long been defined by its rote-learning method and textbook-centric teaching. The archaic learning pattern has been blamed for taking away creative thinking from the young minds and embracing creative or offbeat careers is low on their choices. While some changes are seen in the education system with CBSE introducing art-integrated courses and NEP emphasising on creative programmes, a change in the mindset will help in nurturing the natural creativity among youngsters.

A key reason behind this shift is the dissolution of several traditional jobs, says Rimi B Chatterjee, professor, Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. “From the 50s-70s, the Indian economy absorbed several rote-trained technicians and service providers in PSU, manufacturing and infrastructure firms. But there has been a worldwide slowdown in these sectors, and various jobs have been automated.”

UNCONVENTIONAL AVENUES

The All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) report 2018-19 shows that enrolments in conventional streams such as engineering have seen a decline of 6,37,781 in the last five years.

But, takers in creative courses including in fine arts, fashion designing and technology, design, linguistics,etc have increased across various disciplines in the last two years. A total of 53,213 students took up various fine arts courses in 2018-19 as against 52,414 in 2017-18. Besides, enrolments in design courses have risen from 20,844 in 2017-18 to 22,545 in 2018-19.

This is due to the creation of new jobs and branches of current jobs that did not exist earlier, says Indrajit Neogi, HOD, Film and Video Design, MIT Institute of Design, Pune. “Earlier, one could not think of streaming videos online or producing shows and films exclusively for digital platforms. This progress has generated novel job roles in video and film editing, production, sound recording, etc, which has made the uncertainty of building an offbeat career subside to some extent,” he says. Also, parents have become far open-minded more keen on encouraging their children to follow their dreams.

“This has happened due to the various job roles that have opened up in creative areas–design, fine arts, writing, music, among others, which have made parents less anxious about their children choosing such a career,” adds Neogi.

BETTER GOVERNANCE

Despite the rising enrolments in creative courses, Mir Imtiyaz, head, Department of Sculpture, Jamia Millia Islamia, refuses that parents have become receptive. He says that orientation programmes for students and parents from the primary education level must be introduced so that “creative fields are not merely seen as extracurricular activities but as subjects for potential job prospects.”

Source : https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/#