Sea of opportunities for bright girls

Kavita Laithangbam *

Students appearing for Class XII Exam at Imphal in February 2015 :: Pix - Shankar Khangembam

The girl students in Manipur outshine their male classmates in most of the examinations. Besides the top ten in almost all examinations are cornered by girl students. Yet the girls are lagging behind in employments. Though some of the girls could get selected in civil service examinations their numbers are few and far between.

I once knew a common looking Assamese girl of medium IQ. Last time I heard was that she had become a CEO of a well known company, getting high salary, perks like luxurious flat, company car and taking very important decisions. One Assamese girl is the high rank news reader in a prominent news channel in India. Some others had made their presence felt in the newspaper world also.

What are the secrets of such spectacular successes of the girls of other NE states? It is their command of the English language and keeping abreast of the current affairs. It is a sad fact that the Manipuri girls cannot speak English fluently.

Almost all of them do not read newspapers and have not cultivated the habit of listening to BBC. Recently I was taken aback by the wrong pronunciations of even some common words and terminologies by news readers in Manipur.

If we have to come up from the clerical jobs in some obscure government departments we have to be able to speak and write English at tolerable level. What is more, we should read newspapers, listen to the news so that we know what is happening around us. Plus we should have in-depth knowledge of our chosen subjects.

Once we do these simple things we will be able to face any job interview with confidence and we will emerge victorious. Thousands of girls are in almost all states for general and specialised studies.

There should not be any problems for us to work in any states. I have observed that many girls are rather wasting the hard earned money of their parents. They do not seriously study their college text books.

They lack ambition and vision and had never bothered to study seriously with an objective in mind. Most of them will come home after their college. They are lucky if they get some jobs under the state government. But then it is a tough fight and merit counts very little.

Since there is virtually no employment opportunity in Manipur the girls must seek employment elsewhere. One finds Manipuri girls in all establishments and many offices and it shows that they had beat candidates from other states in the job interviews. With little study and works they could dominate the civil services, bank officer selection interviews and other all India competitions.

In this computer age one could surf the websites to search for the vacant posts. But then one should be very careful not to be trapped by criminals. There had been some shocking reports of how some simple minded girls had been duped. Some of them had been taken out overseas on the false promise of plum jobs.

Most of them had met nightmarish experiences. Being educated the girls should be in a position to avoid the death holes. Our parents belong in a different age and they will be of little help in such matters. But then they have a responsibility to select the best and safest place to keep their daughters.

Nurses and other professionals from Manipur have high demand in most of the states. Because our girls are disciplined, efficient, hard working, uncomplaining and do not grumble much for their salary or rises. Girls in other professions like beauty parlours, journalism and small business are well settled.

Well, some parents may be worried about married settled life of their daughters if they continue to work elsewhere. It is an understandable concern of all parents. Because everybody knows that all girls married to non-Manipuris do not have happy life and most of them had been deserted or divorced. The girls should have looked before they leaped. It is no secret that some sections look us down.

However it is gratifying to note that some students unofficially are match makers. They allow like-minded girls and boys in the same or similar professions with compatible mindsets, ambitions and philosophy of life meet. If they match each other parents are informed and in this manner some boys and girls are happily married. Parents and girls studying everywhere should prevail upon the students' groups at important cities and towns to do such match makings.

Meanwhile our girls should make preparations or top jobs which they could do every easily. The bookish knowledge of their text books will not stand by them in good stead during the scramble for job. And the unemployment is increasing after every examination.

It is a case of survival of the fittest and unemployment is in every country in the world. Now they should start working or perish for the rest of their lives.