Chapter 6 Human Resource Development

* Explain the term ‘Population Dynamics’. State the factors / elements responsible for population dynamics.

* Write a short note on ‘Population Dynamics’.

M

althus has painted a gloomy picture of the prospects of development. He was of an opinion that food grain increases at arithmetic ratio and population grow at geometrical ratio. So the society could hardly come out of substance level. But according to the modern view of population, society could be trapped in it in the first and second stages of demographic transition. So modern thinking about population is rather dynamic.

Population dynamics basically views the population of a country from two angles, i.e. Quantitative and qualitative. Both are inter-dependent and are influenced by multitude of forces. In due course of time, the social, political, economic and natural environment changes take place. Along with these changes the forces working on the population also change. They are change in the size, age-structure and the quality of population. Such comprehensive view of population is the content of population dynamics.

Following are the important elements of population dynamics.

1. Urbanization and Economic Growth: According to the World Development Report (1991) ‘Urbanization and economic growth in developing countries both tend to reduce population growth. In India farm households in higher growth areas, which were exposed to the new technologies of the green revolution, had fewer children. But the economic growth has a double linkage in population growth. A rapid growth of population is a constraint on economic growth and a slow pace of economic betterment creates hurdles in slowing down the population growth. To improve the situation, equitable distribution of income is suggested.

2. Eradication (abolition) of poverty: A high birth rate leads the poverty. Unless the population come out of poverty and gain a certain minimum standard of living, they will not realize the importance of limiting their families. Improvement is only when they have desire to have more and more material good. This desire would create a sense of small family norm.

3. Role and status of women: In a male-dominated society, women have no say in matter of family planning, even though she gives birth to children and take the responsibility of rearing them. They get a better status only because of their income-earning capacity or their education. Women can play a vital role in family building.

4. Education: A primary and secondary education has a bearing on family size. Education creates a better awareness and an understanding of social responsibilities. It widens the horizons of aspirations and creates achievement motivations. It also raises the standard of living.

5. Health and nutrition: Studies in some countries like Chile, Philippines, Kenya have revealed the fact that high female employment opportunities outside he home have led to fall in fertility rate. This fall in fertility rate is because of fall in infant mortality rate. Along with the control of infant mortality, various health programmes are also found to be instrumental in lowering fertility rates.

6. Socio-cultural transformation: There are several socio-cultural factors affect the living styles and the family size. They are disintegration of joint family, a closer relation between work and earning and urbanization, emergence of a new industrial culture and acceptance of a new set of values and above all the challenges of a highly competitive and dynamic new world. These all tend to reorient the minds of people and make them conscious about the number and the quality of their children

Describe the Population Policies of Developing Countries.

Describe the Blueprint for Active Population Policy.

Dr. Frank Notestien has suggested the blue print of a policy for population control. This policy is adopted with some necessary modification by the LDCs. It has some measures. They are as follows:

1. Economic measures: The economic measures, which along with stimulating economic development make decline in fertility. They are as follows:

a) The development of industry in less developed areas is one of the most important economic measures. This results in emerging small modern townships pulling people out of their former context and permits the growth of new individualistic aspiration (ambition). This also helps to withdraw the surplus population from the agriculture sector.

b) The rationalization and extension of agriculture. This is made possible by introducing the modern techniques of agriculture, reform of land tenures and credit systems. Also the new techniques of crop-protection, new ways of using water resources and appropriate mechanization are also helpful.

c) The promotion of international trade. Trade is one of the most important means of diffusing new ideas and attitudes.

d) Promotion of self-employment. Most LDCs have invested much more on education as the investment in Human Resources, which result in educated unemployed youth instead of skilled workers. The result is waste of money. So the self-employment, which the society needs for economic development, is necessary to be promoted.

2. Educational measures: General education through formal and non-formal have close relation with small family norm. Various studies have shown that the higher is the level of education, the smaller is the number of children born in the family and the better is the health care taken of the children.

Population education has very important position. It is necessary that people should know a) the implications of population change for the quality of their own individual, family and social life and b) the role they themselves play in determining the nature of that population change.

Population education has to be given through formal channels of schools, colleges, technical and professional education institutions, etc through curricular and co-curricular.

3. Birth control measures: Instead of having big families it is worth to have a small family and to take care of health and welfare of children. This should be given widest possible publicity. Controlled fertility will have to be made an integral part of the public health programme. The govt. can provide health an contraceptive services in order to encourage the desired behaviour.

The right policy of popularizing and distributing contraceptives is of utmost important. In poverty-ridden sections, vasectomies (family planning surgery) and mechanical devices like copper-T are very important. At the same time, other alternatives should also be within an easy reach (both physically and financially) of the population.

4. Public Health: Dr. Notestein observes that the healthy life develops the interest in the dignity and material well being of the individual essential. This reduces the rate of fertility.

The World Development Report 1991 suggests two tasks. A) To provide nutrition to improve the mental and physical well being of children and adults. B) To improver the control and treatment of disease.

5. Political factors: Along with political leaders, the civil servants and the middle classes can play the vital role in the population policy. China is the best example of how a strong political will coupled with a well thought-out pan can make population policy successful. On the other hand Indian experiment of mid-1970s illustrates how politics can set the clock back on the population front. So it is necessary that all the political parties should have a code of conduct to be accepted in which they should avoid taking political advantages by damaging social harmony in general, and population policy in particular.

6. Social determinants: The success of population policy demands public participation and involvement. The role of voluntary social organizations and of other institutions with a mass base, in this respect is important. Along with hospital and dispensaries, universities, collages, youth and women’s clubs and a host of other voluntary organizations can take part in this point.

7. Migration: In a developing economy, where efforts at lowering fertility are well under way, migration could be of great help in facilitating the transition to low fertility. Third World nations have rural-urban migration. A massive rural-urban migration in the past fe years has created an imbalance in the distribution of population. This trend can be reverted by creating economic and social opportunities in the rural areas, such as making small farms profitable through better techniques, high yielding varieties of seeds, crop-protection programme, etc.

State the present position of education.

Explain the problems of Education in LDCs.

The term education contains, general, technical and vocational education, which also relates to formal and non-formal education.

General education – It is imparted through schools, colleges, technical institutions, etc involves well planned, time bound, time schedules of teaching and evaluation. LDCs have to face many problems in planning the formal education. Primary education must reach to all. Secondary education is also be given importance because it is useful in all levels in government, industry, commerce and agriculture. It must be broad-based to provide education in science, mathematics, arts and humanities. General education provides basic education to be a good citizen, to orient the minds of students towards change and development, equip them with general skills like literacy, numeric ability, etc.

Technical and vocational education – Building technical capacity is necessary for economic growth. Use of computers has caused a major technological change. This needs the expansion and improvement of primary and secondary education and the creation of incentives to increase the supply and demand for more specialized technical training. Technical education is required to be imparted at various levels. Technical trades like electrician, mechanic, welder, etc. is required to be taught for manning the basic cadre of workers. For higher level of technical education, poly-techniques institutions, engineering collages are established.

Vocational education is essential to prepare typist, surveyors, and field workers of various types, veterinary assistants, and other sub-professionals to fill various posts of key importance in a developing economy.

The developing countries have been following policies of spreading education- especially formal education- to all the sections of the society. Though health and education are important components of HRD, government spends larger amounts on education than on health.

Problems of Education in LDCs –

Education in LDCs is unsatisfactory. The difficulties in the field of education have been notified. This is because of following reasons.

1. Heavy investment – Spread of education initially depends upon the availability of school buildings. Classrooms, administrative and library, labs accommodation plus all other facilities for each school requires a large amount of capital investment.

2. Recurring responsibilities – It is not only enough to make a capital investment once and for all. Salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff, books, other teaching aids, stationary, laboratory apparatus and chemicals, etc. constitute this recurring expenditure. Both fixed and recurring investments are not directly productive as they neither increase the supply of goods available at the market not it cause an increase the government’s revenue in the immediate future. So this investment is a constraint in education in the LDCs.

3. Dearth of trained staff.- It is necessary to have trained staff in the field of education. For want of an adequate institutional set-up, training facilities cannot be increased rapidly. Many who have no aptitude of becoming good teachers turn to this profession only out of unemployment.

4. Teaching and learning aids – To expand the horizons of knowledge teaching aids play an important role. LDCs cannot mobilize the resources for this purpose. They even don’t have necessary skills to prepare and se this material.

5. Inertia (Lethargy) and inefficiency – World Development Report observes a large proportion of students who complete primary education in low-income countries fail to reach national or international standards of achievement in maths, science and reading. Use of technology in educational sector changes very slowly. Still the useless technique of cramming (reciting/revise) and forgetting after the exam is going on in the LDCs. This never evaluate a student’s personality and intellectual and his power of thinking, reflecting, reasoning. The teaching methods and learning techniques are rusty, irritable and antiqued.

6. Poor management and distorted incentives – The society’s needs are not perceived. No sufficient information is available. Structural rigidities are a great obstacle. Corruption, political interference and a distortion of values may make the system unrelated to the primary goals of development.

7. Maladjustment of social needs, especially at primary level – A minimal arithmetical and clerical skills can be given at primary and secondary levels, which is useful in all fields and all levels. But education system is poor because a) 70% children live and enrolled in rural area. What they learn in the schools is useless in their daily life. B) Primary schools are the feeders to the high schools. Hardly 25-30% students from the primary schools reach the high schools and 20% reach the collage. And out of those who complete higher education, hardly 30% get employment.

8. Problems of higher education - Even though there are higher educational institutes in LDCs, they are misadjusted to the real needs of development. The basic mis-adjustment is these institutes are established on the lines of developed countries instead of their own needs. Thus the imported structure is bound to meet with limited success. Moreover per student cost of higher education is 85-88 times than those of primary education. A serious problem of higher education is that this system is overblown and produces an output that greatly exceeds the capacity of the economy to absorb them. This results in a wasteful use of resources, unemployment and underemployment.

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Explain The Employment Generation Programme In India.

The specifically designed anti-poverty programmes for generation of self employment and wage employment in rural areas have been redesigned ad restructured to improve their impact on poor. The economic survey, 1999-2000 gives a very lucid and latest classification of various employments in India.

1. Self-Employment Programmes Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY)

Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) and allied programmes such as Training Of Rural Youth For Self Employment (TRYSEM), Development Of Women And Children In Rural Areas (DWCRA) and Million Wells Scheme (MWS) have been restructured in to a single self-employment programme called the ‘Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana’(SGSY) from April 1999. It has following objectives a) Focused approach to poverty lessening/improvement. B) Capitalizing advantages of group lending. C) Overcoming the problems associated with multiplicity of programme. The SGSY is conceived as a holistic programme of micro enterprises covering all aspects of self-employment, which includes organizing rural poor into self-help groups (SHGs). The object of SGSY is to bring up the poor family above the poverty line by earning monthly Rs. 2000. Subsidy of 30% of the project cost or Rs.7500, which ever is less, is given under this aid. SGSY is funded by the center and the states in the ratio of 75-25.

2. Wage Employment programmes:

There are two programmes under wage employment programme. They are i) Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY) ii) the employment Assurance scheme (EAS)

i) Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY) – in April 1999 Jawahar Rozgar Yojana has been structured, streamlined, and renamed as Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY). The primary objective of JGSY is creation of demand driven village infrastructure. And to generate the supplementary employment for the unemployed poor in the rural areas is the secondary objective. Families below poverty line are benefited under this scheme.22.5% of the annual allocation must be spent on beneficiary schemes for Scheduled Castes/ tribes and 3% for the disabled.

ii) The Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS) – This scheme was launched on 2^nd October 1993 in 1772 identified backward blocks situated in draught prone, desert, tribal and hill areas. This scheme was restructured as a single wage employment programme from April 1999 with a fixed annual outlay. The primary objective of the EAS is creation of additional wage employment opportunities during the period of acute shortage of wage employment through manual work for the rural poor living below the poverty line. The secondary objective is the creation of durable community, social and economic assets to sustain future employment and development. The Zilla Parishads are designated as the implementing authorities of the scheme.

3. Urban Employment and Anti-poverty Programme (UEPP)

This programme is specially planned for the urban areas. There are two schemes under this programme. They are I) Prime Minister’s Rozgar Yojana (PMRY) ii) The Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY)

i) Prime Minister’s Rozgar Yojana (PMRY) – This scheme was launched in urban areas in 1993-94 and extended to rural areas also from 1994-95 for providing self-employment to educated unemployed. In Eighth Plan (1992-97) it attempted to generate employment for more than a million people by setting up of seven lakh micro-enterprises. In Ninth Plan (1997-2002) the scheme was continued with certain modifications.

ii) The Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) – Nehru Rozgar Yojana (NRY), Urban Basic Services for the Poor (UBSP) and Prime Minister’s Integrated Urban Poverty Alleviation Programme (PMIUPEP) were combined together and The Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) came into operation from December 1997. Under this scheme the urban unemployed or underemployed poor living below poverty line and educated up to std. IX are provided employment through setting up of self-employment ventures or provision of wage employment. The scheme gives special impetus to empower and uplift the poor women and launches a special programme, namely, Development of Women and Children in Urban Area (DWCUA).