Friday 22 April 2011

Vocationalisation in Education-an urgent requirement!

It is a harsh reality that not all students will be able to get through a formal degree course, and not all students will be able to get white collar jobs after doing their graduation. So, then, why is today’s Educational system aimed at students who want to enrol in formal degree courses? Unfortunately, not all students of twelfth class will be able to get admission to their favourites graduate courses, or even their favourite engineering or medical courses. It is because of these harsh facts that the importance of introducing vocational courses at the secondary and higher secondary levels becomes essential! Food Technology, Fashion Designing, Computer Sciences and Informatics Practices are some of the courses that have been introduced by the C.B.S.E., but then they are not enough. The minimum requirement for admission to an ITI or polytechnic course is a secondary certificate, besides an entrance exam. This is good enough. It is high time our Education Policy makers realised that there should be more lateral  exit points  and opportunities for students who want to leave school before twelfth class. It is not enough to have just one exit point for students who want to leave school to join a  vocational trade. I believe eighth and ninth classes should be  the minimum exit points for students, and they should not be forced to stay in school till tenth or twelfth, by which time they would be a disillusioned lot! If these students can leave school by class eight, they can at least join a vocational course and learn a trade by the time a regular student passes class twelve. This would provide better employment opportunities for students who leave school after class eight or nine. I wonder why we insist on forcing a student to stick in school till class twelve when he is not interested in English, Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Commerce or Maths? This student might be more interested in a trade, or even he might be good with machines, or crafts? Our Educational policy pays lip service to Vocationalisation of education and we are churning out too many graduates and twelfth class pass outs who are not able to get jobs because they don’t have very good marks. They can’t get jobs as professional because a traditional class twelfth pass certificate  or a Graduation Degree does not equip them them for life. Most have to go for a professional degree course after completing their graduation. For a teacher, one would have to go for a B.Ed. degree after graduation, for others it would mean going for a Diploma course or a certificate course. For students who can’t afford further education  it is a waste of time going for a formal degree course! The problem of undisciplined students can be solved if they are not forced against their wishes to stay back in school studying subjects they are least interested in till class twelfth. Give them the opportunity learn something useful, some thing which will give them employment, and self esteem and self dignity and self dignity. After all, what is a paper degree without exceptionally high scores?

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