Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions on it.
In the 1960s and 1970s undergraduates did not need to apply for employment. Employees usually wooed them by depositing offers of jobs in their halls of residence for those interested to pick and choose from as soon as they finished writing their degree examinations. How things have changed! We have since “progressed” from this age of abundance in which unemployment was hardly heard of to one of economic recession and widespread unemployment. The problem is so acute that one finds unemployment even among engineers and doctors.
What are the causes of this phenomenon? For one thing, our educational system does not train its products for self-employment. Everybody expects the government or the private sector to provide them with a job at the end of their studies. As we have now realised, the government and the private sector combined cannot create enough jobs to go around the army of graduates turned out annually by our universities. For another, many parents encourage their children to enrol in courses leading to prestigious and lucrative professions for which they may be intellectually unsuited. They end up obtaining poor degrees or none at all. Such graduates cannot compete in the job market, so they swell the ranks of the unemployable and the unemployed.
Perhaps the most important single cause of unemployment is economic recession. During periods of boom, economic activities are generated in abundance and these make plenty of jobs available. But the reverse is the case in times of economic recession.
There is no simple solution to the problem. Everyone in the society has a role to play here. The government has a duty to ensure that the economy is buoyant, thus providing the right environment for the creation of jobs. The educational authorities have to orientate the process of education towards the production of job creators rather than job seekers. Guidance and counselling services should be made available in all secondary institutions. Parents, too, should stop misdirecting their children into choosing careers for which they are ill-suited.
(a)(i) What was the employment situation like in the 1960s and 1970s?
(ii) What is the situation now?
(b) In what ways do the education systems, the parents and the students contribute to the unemployment situation?
(c) Mention three suggestions given in the last paragraph for solving the problem.
(d) Why does the writer enclose the word progressed (First paragraph) in quotation marks?
(e) ……..for which they may be intellectually unsuited.
(i) What grammatical name is given to this expression?
(ii)What is its function as it is used in the sentence?
(f) For each of the following words, find another word or phrase that means the same and can replace it as it is used in the passage:
(i) recession
(ii) acute
(iii) army
(iv) lucrative
(v) boom
(vi) orientate
Explanation
(a)(i) In the 1960s and 1970s it was easy to secure employment or There was no unemployment.
(ii) Now it is not easy I It is difficult to secure employment or There is unemployment.
(b)(i) The educational system does not train students to be self-employed
(ii) Parents enroll their children for courses that they are not suited for.
(iii) Students obtain poor degrees or none at all or Students are unemployable
(c)(i) Government should provide the right environment for the creation of jobs or Government should make the economy buoyant. (ii) The educational authorities should channel the process of education towards producing job creators rather than job seekers.
(iii) Guidance and counselling services should be made available in all secondary schools
(iv) Parents should not force courses (careers) on their children.
(a) He has used it ironically or He has used it to describe the opposite of what has really happened (or what he really means) or He has not used the word in its real sense.
(e)(i) Adjectival / Relative clause (ii) It qualifies the noun 'professions'.
(f) (I) recession depression, shrink, decline, down-turn, retrogression (ii) acute severe, serious, enormous
(iii) army — large number, throng, hordes, multitude, host, legion (iv) lucrative --profitable, paying, rewarding, gainful, well-paid
(v) boom-growth, buoyancy, prosperity, plenty, abundance (vi) orientate-direct, steer, channel, redirect, guide, turn