By Ibormitre Passah & Karissa Berti Khonglam
Every year, nearly 70,000 young people in Meghalaya finish school or college and step out to find work. But most face a hard truth. However, the state government offers only about 2,000 to 2,500 jobs a year as stated by Meghalaya Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma in the Assembly in September 2025. This leaves a shortfall of nearly 67,500 jobs every year. For families across the state, this is not just a number on paper. It is a quiet worry that plays out in homes every day, as thousands of young people find very few real choices.
For generations, the dream has stayed the same: medicine, engineering, banking, teaching, or a government job. This is not because our youth lack ambition. It is because, for many families, this has been the safest way to survive. Many students come from farming families, where income depends on the weather and the season. For them, a stable, pensionable government job has always been the only real shield against poverty. It is the ultimate safety net. Because of this, young people are often pushed into a narrow set of choices, even when it means ignoring their own interests or new opportunities in the market.
This focus on a few traditional careers creates a real blind spot. A study of Shillong graduates aged 20 to 34 found that most of their unemployment was not by choice. Many wanted to work but simply could not find jobs that matched their degrees. A 2024 BCAR survey by UNICEF’s YuWaah also found that family background shapes most career choices in India, with government and defence jobs still the top picks. Most worryingly, fewer than one in ten students said they had ever received real career guidance. Without solid information on the job market, parents and teachers end up giving advice based on how things used to work, not how they work now.
The gap grows wider because of a mismatch between what students study and what industries actually need. Many graduates leave college with degrees that do not match the skills Meghalaya’s growing economy is asking for. This is even harder for students from rural areas. A study of 68 rural students in Meghalaya found that many struggled simply to reach college, facing money problems, language barriers, and little support along the way, let alone getting help to plan a career afterwards.
At the same time, Meghalaya’s economy is changing quietly. Reports by NITI Aayog and the National Council of Applied Economic Research point to fresh growth in agriculture, construction, tourism, food processing, services, and digital industries. These are not small side sectors. They are becoming real engines of growth. New investments are creating a real need for new skills, skills that go far beyond the usual list of traditional careers. Yet most students still do not know these paths exist.
The cost of this gap is quiet but serious. It shows up as underemployment, a talented young person spending years preparing for a government exam that may never lead anywhere. It shows up as brain drain also, as those who feel the local job market is closed leave for other cities, taking their skills and energy with them to other States.
A simple way to think about a possible framework to look forward is through a Venn diagram having two sets. The first circle is the student, their interests, strengths, and passions. The second circle is the state, the careers that are actually available, workable, feasible and needed in Meghalaya. Often, a student’s passion and the local job market do not fully match. What they love may not always be what is available, and what is available may not always match what they love.
We tell young people to only take “safe” jobs, without admitting that the very idea of safe is changing fast in a world being reshaped by technology. When passion has no connection to reality, it leads to unemployment. When a “safe” job has no connection to passion, it leads to the quiet tiredness of doing work that feels pointless. The real sweet spot, the true career fit, sits only where these two circles meet. That is the intersection where a person’s passion meets a real opportunity.
Meanwhile, time keeps running out for these young people. Each day, they sit in classrooms with textbooks that promise a future that may never arrive, while outside, the world offers chances they were never taught to see. They stand caught between the safety of the old way and the pull of something new, waiting to realise that the path they were told to follow may not be the only one.
At this moment, the truth becomes clear: a young person’s potential is not limited, their talent is not stuck waiting for a government notice, and their future is something to build, not wait for. We might need to change the questions we ask. Families should stop asking, “Which government exam will you write?” and start asking, “What problems do you enjoy solving, and what skills can we help you build to solve them?” And, just as important: “How can you earn a living from what you’re good at?” Parents and teachers should act as guides, not gatekeepers, helping children find the “intersection,” that important middle ground where personal interest meets real, paying work in the local economy.
This needs real, structural change, and it must start early, in secondary school. The ASER 2024 report shows that while more rural teenagers in Meghalaya now have smartphones, their basic reading and math skills are still uneven. Career guidance means little without these basics in place first. A 2021 study of postgraduate students in Shillong found that career counselling needs to become a proper, trained profession, not an informal chat with an already-busy teacher, and government figures show the state’s new counselling effort coordinated through the Meghalaya State Skill Development Society currently covers just 34 centers across 25 sectors- a start, but still far from reaching every student. Schools must stop treating career advice as a one-time talk and instead offer it as an ongoing, professional service.
Families, too, should change their thinking. Success can no longer mean just one narrow path. Parents should become partners in their child’s search, not guardians of tradition. By widening what “success” means to include tourism, digital services, logistics, and entrepreneurship, families can help their children find work that is both personally satisfying and financially sound.
Finally, the government and private companies must keep building support for these different paths. Programs like the Chief Minister’s Skills Mission and PRIME Meghalaya are important steps in the right direction. The goal is simple: a young person should not always have to wait for a government post. Instead, they should see a clear, supported route into a field where they themselves can create tomorrow’s jobs. Meghalaya’s youth are not lost because they lack ambition. They are lost because they are using an outdated map. By making career counselling a real profession, widening what success means, and connecting education to the real local economy, we can hand them a better compass. A university degree should not be a finish line, and a government job should not be the only measure of a good life. By finding the point where personal strength meets real opportunity, Meghalaya’s youth can stop feeling trapped in a maze and start building a stronger, more capable state.
(Authors’ details: Ibormitre Passah is from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi & Indian Institute of Management Kashipur. Karissa Berti Khonglam is from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi)
