Experts wants Central and state government to lay more emphasis on vocational education

Updated on: Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Experts feel that state and Central governments should lay more emphasis on vocational education system in the country as there are abundant job opportunities in countries like Australia and New Zealand for vocational stream students.

India has about 2.5 million vocational training seats, whereas about 12.8 million persons enter the labour market every year. About 90 per cent of employment opportunities require vocational skills which are not imparted in a big way in schools and colleges, an MHRD official said.

Mr S.N. Janardhanan, state general secretary, Tamil Nadu higher secondary school vocational teachers association, said the state government introduced vocational stream in state-run schools during 1978, and up to 1985, the government made it mandatory to start vocational stream in higher secondary schools.

“In 2006, the state government stopped the launch of vocational education in its schools. Of the 2,300 higher secondary schools in the state, only 1,605 schools now have vocational subjects. We have urged the state government to bring back vocational stream in all schools in the state,” he said.

However, an HRD official, who did not want to be named, said the ministry had proposed various reforms to bring in necessary ‘flexibility’ in the offering of vocational courses and development of ‘modular competency-based curricula’ in collaboration with industry to suit the needs of both target groups and employers (industry) to reduce shortage of skilled manpower.

Mr Ramachandran, vocational teacher in one of the government higher secondary schools in the state, said vocational group students have abundant job opportunities. “It is not only computer graduates who get jobs, even a person who has completed agriculture gets a job in a bank as field officer; so it’s a myth that vocational group students don’t get employed.

Companies are in great need of vocational students for apprenticeship training. Recently, we had some top core group companies recruiting our class 12 students for apprenticeship,” he added.

The Union government had started the national vocational education qualifications framework scheme to set common principles and guidelines for a nationally recognised qualification system, which covers schools, vocational education institutes and institutes of higher education with qualifications ranging from secondary to doctorate level, leading to international recognition of national standards.

Experts wants Central and state government to lay more emphasis on vocational education

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