It is very heartening to note that Japan is keen on hiring around 50,000 skilled youths from Assam to meet the growing demand for skilled workforce in that country. As Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma disclosed on Saturday, Singapore too wants to hire nurses from Assam. This is a direct outcome of the recent visit of the chief minister to different countries in connection with the upcoming Advantage Assam 2.0 scheduled to be held later this month in Guwahati. As he said, the government of Assam would sign MoUs with Japan and Singapore during Advantage Assam 2.0 for the supply of skilled workforce and nurses to the two countries. With the number of educated unemployed persons in Assam increasing, this comes as a ray of hope. Going by reports, over 10 percent of Assam’s total population is unemployed. Recent media reports quoting official statistics say that there are about 33.5 lakh registered unemployed persons in Assam, of whom about 13 lakh were registered only during 2024. Assam’s job seekers belong to various levels—from unskilled high school dropouts to those having a master’s degree, as well as degrees in engineering and technology. It is a fact that several lakh of unskilled men and women from Assam are working in various private companies and enterprises outside the region, particularly in the southern states. Moreover, a sizable number of persons holding a degree in engineering, or a master’s degree, are doing clerical jobs in various government departments. This alone speaks volumes about the employability factor of Assam’s educated persons. The chief minister’s statement on Saturday itself indicates that language is one skill in which employment seekers of Assam have been lacking. As stated by him, while he met seventeen young women working in Singapore as nurses, that country wants more nurses from Assam, though with one condition: they must be able to communicate well in English. As far as employment opportunities in Japan are concerned, it is a must that the willing candidates must be able to speak, read, and write Japanese. Another aspect that the chief minister has not mentioned is that Japanese companies have shown keen interest in investing in various sectors in Assam. Once setting up shop in Assam, these companies will definitely prefer those candidates who can communicate in Japanese. But there is a huge gap, if not a total absence of initiative, in creating facilities for imparting Japanese language teaching in Assam. In reality, hardly any university or other institution has the facility for teaching any foreign language in the Northeast. This absence of language learning facilities is in itself one major impediment for those who want to look for jobs either in foreign countries or in factories established by foreign companies in the region. Language skills apart, it is also a fact that the large majority of job seekers in Assam also lack basic information about employment opportunities available around them even within the region, not to speak of a foreign country. There are numerous organizations in Assam that claim to represent the student community apart from claiming to raise problems faced by students. But hardly has anyone ever seen any of these self-styled student bodies demanding the establishment of institutions or facilities that can offer skills that can make the students employable in a competitive manner vis-à-vis students and unemployed persons belonging to other states like West Bengal, Bihar, UP, or Karnataka. This can be ascertained by looking at the outbursts and protests by various self-styled student bodies every time the NF Railway recruits a new batch of employees. Since NF Railway has a geographical jurisdiction over parts of West Bengal and Bihar in addition to the whole of the northeastern region, it is quite natural that candidates belonging to all these states are eligible to get employment in it. But, while candidates from outside the region work hard to prepare for and get the jobs, the self-styled student bodies of Assam, instead of doing something to prepare the potential candidates, only wake up from slumber after a batch of candidates arrive from the other states holding appointment letters in their hands. Our universities too have probably failed to identify the problem and find a suitable solution to address the problems standing in the way of making the educated young people of Assam really employable. Our universities, whether private or government, appear to be more interested in giving out degrees rather than creating a large pool of young people who are fit to be employed. There is a mushroom growth of so-called coaching institutes claiming to help prepare the young people to become IAS and IPS. On the contrary, there is not one institute that prepares the youth for jobs, say in the railways, or in the numerous private companies that have set up industries across Assam.