Professional footprint: Can it be a success indicator?

As I graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Sociology, what bothers me more today than ever is the anxiety of what would embrace me here-after. The job market is small, job seekers are aplenty, skills and experiences are pre-requisites for every simple job, and more of all, competition is so huge that a vacancy for an administrative assistant is flooded with applications from thousands of university graduates. These are the realities today and civil service still remains a preference for every job seeker.

 Even if I get a job, will it provide me with a space to prosper intellectually? Would I be able to contribute enough to my nation? Could I survive to the dynamism and sophistication of technology advancements? Or would my fate in the system be like the venomous snake that enters one side and comes out from the other outlet of a pipe? 

On one hand, our economy is so much constricted that employment creation is stagnated to a few single digits. Our youth have been persistently scavenging for all sorts of job opportunities in the market, running from pillar to post, just to hear government official persuade them to take up farming at the end. Where is the land to undertake farming when the whole nation is confined to the 8.3% (maximum extension) arable land? The environment and forestry laws forbid transforming the rest of the areas and, farming cannot happen on roofs of Bhutanese houses yet. Youths are asked to take up the cottage and small industries to curve import substitution. Where is the market for these products when government offices choose foreign brand snacks over Bhutanese khabzey and jhony walker whisky over our home-brewed ara? Where are laws and policies that enforce some provisions such as the preferential treatment for Bhutanese products?

On the other hand, it is believed that there are so many employees in the system who have secured their place in the civil service. Whether they perform or not, their positions are secured till their retirement age because our system does not practise ‘hiring and firing’ strategies and it is a sin to break the employees’ morale.

All thanks to this karmic law, today there are many Research Officers who have never written a research paper, Planning Officers who have never participated in the formulation of a five-year plan, Policy Makers who still do not know the nuances of policy-making, Agriculture Officers who have never adopted a kitchen garden, and of course, Human Resource Officers who have never read the Bhutan Civil Service Rules in complete. Some are at the verge of superannuating and soon to have a fulfilled-retired life.

After someone takes his feet away from the system, where can we find his footprint? I feel it is important that professional footprint of every employee vis-à-vis every Bhutanese be captured so that some of the underlying issues in the job market could be manoeuvred. The beauty could be, Bhutan would have many engineers in the poultry farms, agriculturists in the kitchen garden, vetenirarists in the animal farms, and planners and human resources in the remote ramshackle dwellings.

Where do we start? Putting Professional Footprint as a success indicator for civil servants and corporate employees?                           

This article is earlier published in the Sunday Issue of The Journalist.

 

Disclaimer: All views expressed are my personal opinion and do not represent the views of any entity associated with me.