POPULATION EXPLOSION

World population in 1750: 700 million

World population in 1804: 1 billion

World population in 1850: 1.2 billion

World population in 1900: 1.6 billion

World population in 2019: 7, 577, 130, 400 (almost 8 billion)

The world population day is celebrated on the 11th of July each year to make people around the world aware of the population numbers in every country and the effects of the increment of these numbers on the daily lives of people. This day basically reminds us all of the general population issues.

So what exactly are these issues? Currently trending population issues if listed are: gender equality, family planning, human rights, sexual harassment and child marriage.

Each year the UN organization sets up interesting themes for this day, like: “Six billion to approach” (1998), “Empowering of the equality” (2005), “Actions of the seven billion” (2011) and “Family planning is a human right” (2018) and well, we are yet to find out what UN has in store for the world population day 2019.

As shown above, the figures of the world population since 1750 till 2019 has increased from 700 million to almost 8 billion. We have reached and even gone beyond the goal or target implied by the theme in 1998. This fast increase in the world population will eventually lead to “Population explosion”.

"Population explosion",

noun

A sudden, large increase in the size of a population

While I was pondering upon the definition of the term “population explosion”, I realized

that this term can be related to a life of a university student as well. It got me thinking, aren’t we the very subjects of the population explosion?

Focusing on our very own motherland; upon completing the advanced level examination, it is the dream of every student, to be accepted by a state university or they improvise by enrolling themselves in a private university. Either way, the point is these 19 year old's then step into this rat race called college life.

Let me show you how this global issue of population explosion relates to the lives of college students like us.

In Sri Lanka, there are around 95,000 local students and approximately 350 foreign students who are enrolled into undergraduate programmes each year. Apart from these students in state universities, more than 100, 000 students have been enrolled into private universities island wide. Mind you, these statistics are of just Sri Lanka. Imagine the amount of students who are currently undergraduates globally! Although this is not a major problem as for now, it will be in the near future. But how?

As one steps into college on his/ her first day, the feeling is quite different. It feels like the beginning of a new chapter of life. The first few days of college life, I’d say is a facade of what it actually holds and college life slowly reveals its true self when the ton of weekly assignments start to stream in. The competition and selfishness of students between students in a batch increases and one gets mentally stressed out. Trying to keep up with someone else’s speed exhausts them. Population explosion within a college, leads to a reduction of the needed resources, the reduction in ratio of lecturers to students resulting in the reduced individual attention and thereby not everyone in the university will get the same set of opportunities. It’s more like the survival of the fittest. Basically the four years of college life wears you down both mentally and physically.

After four full years of hard work and sacrifices, these drained out individuals step into a phase of unemployment. Why? The answer to this is “population explosion”. How?

Referring to the definition of population explosion given above, due to the sudden increase in the number of degree holders, and also due to the very limited amount of job opportunities available, and until he/she finds a job that’s appropriate, they will linger in the realms of unemployment. So I’d say being unemployed is a college student’s worst nightmare.

Therefore, the usual ways of preventing population explosion are: empowering women, making available cheap methods of contraception, eradicating poverty, etcetera…

However, is there a solution to prevent or at least reduce the effects of population explosion observed in colleges and in this matter, the problems college students have to face? And what about the current undergraduates and the currently unemployed? How can we, as the future of tomorrow, bring about a change that will positively impact the present and the future yet to come? How can we help prevent the global issue of “population explosion”?

Randila Withanarachchi

ENU 2021 - SIST