Dimapur, April 4 (EMN): While highlighting the issue of unemployment in Nagaland, recipient of Nari Shakti Puraskar Award and founder of YouthNet, Hekani Jakhalu Kense, stated that consistency is the driving force for being ‘gainfully employed and happy at work’ and added that one’s career orientation and planning should begin early.
She stated this during a talk on ‘World of work: Preparing for the future,’ organised by the women cell and gender champion of Patkai Christian College (Autonomous) on April 2 in the college campus.
Addressing the students, Hekani stated that the youth in Nagaland are talented and creative but lack inconsistency, which according to her is the biggest challenge. Referring to the statistics, she informed that Nagaland has the highest urban employment in the Northeast and highest rural-urban unemployment in the country.
She, therefore, expressed the need to reverse the statistics of unemployment rate in the state and called upon the students to start early in deciding their goals.
“Hard work, consistency and being goal oriented are important to be successful. The ‘world of work’ is filled with challenges as one exposes themselves to real working set up,” Hekani said.
Chairing the programme, Dr. Dakter Esse Jamir, HOD of Multimedia and Mass Communication, said that the New Education Policy 2020 is targeted at addressing the issue of unemployment.
“Unemployment, particularly educated unemployment is a defining challenge for any government as well as the educational institutes. Accordingly, this demands reorientation, reorganisation and re-adaptation of the developing scenario,” Dr. Dakter said adding that it calls for change at foundational level.
Manager of YouthNet, T Sepila Zhimomi, spoke on the importance of skill development, internship and career guidance.
The talk was followed with an interaction moderated by Dr. Imlisunep Changkery, assistant professor of Economics, wherein students from various departments raised questions on issues concerning their current state.
On a query by a student from the department of Multimedia and Mass Communication about internship opportunities provided by YouthNet, Hekani informed that ‘YouthNet is open for providing internship and attaching students to various private organisations for internship’.
She also spoke about ‘shadowing,’ a term used for assisting observing and learning from senior officials in different organisations.
When asked on key ingredients required to maintain consistency with one’s goal, she said, ‘the mind is the most powerful tool’ and one has to train the mind to be focused and avoid distractions, while on the question of parental and peer pressure, Hekani stated that one needs to realise their potential and interests and align it to choose a career.