To be successful in life what you need is education, not literacy and degrees.
Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (1880-1936), better known by his pen name Munshi Premchand, was a writer famous for his modern Hindustani literature
Some billionaires boast that they have not stepped into a college. But in the competitive world of today, one needs proper degrees from good universities. But ironically, a degree can be a handicap according to a recent judgment of the Supreme Court.
But first, the facts as reported in the media in mid-November 2020: An employer can reject applications of candidates considered overqualified for a job, the Supreme Court held, overturning a verdict of the Odisha High Court that allowed a graduate to be employed as a peon in Punjab National Bank. The bank had filed an appeal in the apex court against the High Court verdict allowing an overqualified candidate to be appointed a peon.
A Supreme Court bench said: “It is for the employer to determine and decide the relevancy and suitability of the qualifications for any post, and it is not for the courts to consider and assess. There is a rationale behind it… Qualifications are prescribed keeping in view the need and interest of an institution or an industry or an establishment as the case may be. The courts are not fit instruments to assess expediency or advisability or utility of such prescription of qualifications,”
The Supreme Court observed that the candidate had not disclosed that he was a graduate on purpose. It was known only later. Also, the prescribed qualification for the job was Class 12 pass. The bank had a specific rule against appointing a graduate as peon.
“In the present case, prescribing the eligibility criteria/educational qualification that a graduate candidate shall not be eligible and the candidate must have passed 12th standard is justified. It was a conscious decision taken by the bank in force since 2008. Therefore, the High Court has clearly erred,” the Supreme Court observed.
In a country where collecting degrees is seen as an extremely sought-after trait and at a time when people are completing diplomas and degrees online at the rate of knots, can one truly be deemed overqualified or underqualified on the strength of the degrees, diplomas or doctorates one possesses?
That is the question that we have to ask ourselves at a time when over 55 lakh jobs have been lost — many of them in the high-paying bracket — and people are scrambling for any and every job that is coming up for grabs. Literally.
