EXISTING FACILITIES AND PRESENT POSITION
3.01 There were 4,225 institutions imparting technical and vocational education and training in all the States and Union Territories of India at the end of 1973. Out of these 3,455 were located in urban areas and 770 in rural areas. Only 920 institutions had complete hostel facilities and 747 of these were located in urban areas. About one-third of these institutions were exclusively meant for girls most of which were located in urban areas. Only 243 of them were actually in rural areas. The institutions for girls were mostly imparting training in nursing, industrial craft and trades. There were 25 women polytechnics and 4 women industrial training institutes.
3.02 The statewise analysis of these institutions shows their heavy concentration in the States of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Kerala. These States are also industrially more advanced.
3.03 The total enrolment in these institutions was 5,04,442. While 3,80,669 students were enrolled in technical courses offered by the polytechnics, the industrial training institutes and the junior technical schools, only 1,23,773 students were enrolled in other vocational courses. The break-up of this enrolment among boys and girls was 3,79,460 and 1,24,982 respectively. During the year 1972-73 the students who graduated from these institutions numbered 1,97,066. These vocational and training institutions offered a variety of courses having different durations and minimum admission qualifications. The total recurring expenditure during the academic year 1972-73 was about Rs. 560 million and per pupil expenditure was Rs. 1,048. A statement showing distribution of technical and vocational education and training institutions and their sanctioned intake, enrolment and out-turn is at Annexure V.
3.04 The growth of apprenticeship training facilities in the country shows that 201 industries have been specified for the Apprenticeship training schemes in 1973. The number of establishments which engaged apprentices as on 31st March, 1973 was 5,338. These establishments were providing apprenticeship training in 61 designated trades and the total number of apprentices undergoing training as on 31st March, 1973 was 56,753. They turned out during 1972-73, 14,002 trained apprentices.
Central Scheme for Vocationalisation of Higher Secondary
Education 3.05 To ensure countrywide acceptance of the concept of vocationalisation and to assist the State Governments in establishing the relevance and importance of this concept to our socioeconomic needs, the Government of India launched during 1977 a centrally sponsored scheme of vocationalisation of higher secondary education. The main objective of the scheme is to encourage the State Governments to initiate the vocationalisation of education at plus 2 stage and to expand and consolidate it on a regular basis as a State Scheme in the Sixth Plan. The scheme has the following main components:
(i) District Vocational Surveys in 150 districts
(ii) Introduction of vocational courses in 40 selected districts.
The central assistance will be provided for the following items
(i) Conduct of district vocational surveys;
(ii) Appointment of District Vocational Education Officers;
(iii) Purchase of equipment for vocational courses; and
(iv) Salary of teachers for vocational courses.
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The other allied expenses were to be met by the State Governments themselves. Rupees 2 crores were sanctioned for implementation of this scheme during the Fifth Five Year Plan. The scheme itself was cleared only towards the end of February, 1977 for implementation.
3.06 Till the end of financial year 1977-78, financial assistance has been released for the conduct of vocational surveys in 55 selected districts of Assam, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Orissa, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu and Tripura. Under the scheme vocational courses have been introduced in three districts of Karnataka and one district of Sikkim from the academic year 1977-78. To strengthen the efforts of the Government of West Bengal which has already introduced the vocational courses financial assistance under the scheme was released for the purchase of equipment only. The Government of Maharashtra has also decided to introduce vocational courses in 5 districts from the academic year 1978-79 under the scheme. Financial assistance for making preparatory work has been sanctioned. The other States have been requested to identify districts for conduct of surveys and apply for financial assistance under the central scheme. It has been decided to continue the scheme during the year 1978-79.
Position of Vocationalisation 3.07 No doubt several States/Union Territories have introduced programmes of vocationalisation, but most of them are experimenting on a pilot basis in their own way. It is too early to assess the impact and ultimate usefulness of this programme at this stage. However, a brief account of the working in some of the States may be of interest.
Delhi 3.08 The vocationalisation at plus 2 stage was introduced in Delhi during 1977-78. The Reddy Committee (1976), which was set up to examine the problems of vocationalisation in Delhi, recommended several vocational courses in 50 selected schools in Delhi with an intake capacity of 5,000 students. However, in actuality it was possible to provide for vocational streams only in 17 schools including the two technical higher secondary schools and to enrol only 707 students to various vocational courses. The break-up of the courses offered by different schools and the candidates is as follows:
S. Name of Course No. of schools Number of
No. in which provi- candidates
sion made
1. Basic Electrical Technology 2 165
2. Electronic Technology 2 142
3. Air Conditioning & Refrigeration
Technology 2 143
4. Canteen Management 1 -
5. Accountancy and Auditing 5 121
6. Stenography 5 75
7. Nutrition & Food Preservation 1 26
8. Dress Making & Designing 2 15
9. Textile & Design 2 20
Total 707
The poor response to vocational courses in Delhi is due to lack of understanding and appreciation of the significance and basic features of the scheme by the parents and children. There were also some administrative difficulties.
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Karnataka 3.09 In Karnataka, it was estimated that out of about 40,000 students who passed the pre-university courses during 1976-77, only 3,000 could join the professional courses and as many as 36,000 sought admission to higher education in arts, science and commerce at the university. Keeping in view, the national goal of diverting 50% students to the vocational stream in a phased manner, the State Government introduced a programme of vocationalisation from the year 1977-78 under the central scheme of assistance to provide education with training in their chosen vocations for employment. Since employability is the corner-stone of this scheme, Government have associated potential employers with the programmes from the beginning. It will be the earnest endeavour of the State Government to create conditions for the easy absorption of successful candidates by employers.
3.10 During the academic year 1977-78, 13 institutions were selected, on a pilot basis, for the introduction of vocational courses, with a target to enrol 1,200 students in the districts of Dharwar, Bangalore and Dakshina Kannada. As many as 21 vocational courses have been introduced on the basis of their usefulness for both self-employment and employment in the private and public sectors.
3.11 The scheme has had a satisfactory start in Karnataka. The actual number of students offering to take up vocational courses exceeded the State Government's estimation resulting in refusal to enrol all the students desirous of joining the vocational courses. This shows that vocationalisation. is acceptable to the population of Karnataka in general and the parents and students in particular. Since there is demand for skilled personnel in a large number of vocational fields, various other courses are being planned keeping in view the findings of the vocational surveys in the districts of Bangalore, Mysore, Raichur, Uttara Kannada, Hassan, Belgaum and Tumkur. The State Government proposes to introduce vocational courses in 44 institutions throughout the State during 1978-79.
West Bengal 3.12 The State of West Bengal introduced the new pattern of education from the year 1974. To provide admission to 1.5 lakhs students at plus 2 stage, they selected 1000 institutions for the general stream and 100 institutions for the vocational stream in 1976. The West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education conducted a preliminary survey entitled "Manpower Estimates for West Bengal". On the basis of this survey and after taking into account the facilities in the existing institutions, the Council selected five areas of vocations for introduction under the vocational stream. The number of institutions, vocation-wise is as under:
S. Area of Vocation No. of
No. institution
1. Agriculture 25
2. Technical 32
3. Trade and Commerce 26
4. Industries (Textile) 6
5. Para-medical 10
These institutions are located in all the 16 districts of the State. There are 2,300 students in the vocational stream at present. The first batch of students will come out in May, 1978. The courses have been so designed that 50% of instruction is common for academic and vocational streams and the other 50% is available for vocational practice. This permits the vocational student to cross over if he desires by taking the bridge courses provided under a separate group of subjects as offered to academic students.
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3.13 The pattern followed by the State is thus different from that recommended in the NCERT's document "Higher Secondary Education and its Vocationalisation" as they had introduced the programme even before these recommendations were made. The curriculum designed by the State Council is not truly vocational and there seems to be no emphasis on making teaching of basic subjects relevant to vocations. The time allocated for vocational subjects is not in conformity with the prescribed norms. The Bridge Courses that have been provided seem to deliberately discourage a larger proportion of vocational students returning to academic stream as they have to study the complete syllabus meant for the students of general stream. This in itself may not be bad but change from one stream to the other is not easily possible.
Central Board of Secondary Education 3.14 According to the National Pattern of Education, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has provided two streams-academic and vocational at plus 2 stage. The vocational courses have been designed to be terminal in character, but at the same time vertical link is provided both with the courses of academic nature as well as vocational and technical nature. The courses have been designed for a duration of 2 years coinciding with the duration of academic courses in the transitional stage as it is difficult to locate the facilities in or out of school for the extended courses. The CBSE adopted the scheme of studies and the courses prepared by the NCERT. The course structure followed by them is as under:
Subject Share of total time available
(a) A core course for all the
students offering academic or
vocational stream :
(i) One Language 10%
} 25%
(ii) General Study 15%
(b) A vocational course:
(i) Study of basic sciences or
social sciences relevant to
vocation 25%
} 75%
(ii) Practical skills and occupational
experience 50%
A small number of schools affiliated to the Board have started vocational courses during 1977-78. The courses offered were as under:
Agricultural Vocations
1. Inland Fisheries 2. Agriculture
Commerce and Business Related Vocations
3. Office Management and Secretarial Practice 4. Stenography 5. Accountancy and Auditing
Engineering and Technical Vocations
6. Basic Electrical Technology 7. Electronic Technology 8. Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Technology 9. Furniture making and designing
Vocations Related to Home Science
10. Nutrition and Food Preparation 11. Canteen Management
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12. Dress Making and Designing 13. Textile and Designs
Miscellaneous
14. Photography
3.15 In most of the cases the enrolment in these courses was not satisfactory. However, courses relating to commerce and business related vocations, engineering and technical vocations are popular; but there are no students for courses like photography, canteen management, fisheries etc. though these fields have a good potential.
3.16 Some of the reasons for luke-warm response to the vocational courses are:
(i) A great majority of the students wish to seek employment in organised sector; therefore, very few students like to take risk with the career unless one is sure that a particular course would lead him to a specified job.
(ii) The climate for self-employment is still not encouraging so that the students with the type of training provided in the schools could feel themselves confident to risk a heavy investment;
(iii) A heavy investment is needed by the school in terms of equipment and teachers which can be rendered useless by the changing demands of the employment market. This factor has discouraged several institutions to come forward for vocational courses; and
(iv) Owing to geographical distances, particularly with reference to CBSE schools, it has not been possible to share the limited resources available. This has further increased the cost of investment.
3.17 In order to make courses more attractive, experience suggests that these courses need be designed at the grass-root level, particularly by the schools themselves. This is all the more necessary owing to the fact that the students who have to terminate their studies to enter main stream of life would settle by and large in the same area where they have grown up. Their employment market, therefore, lies in their own districts or the States. The courses, therefore, should be relevant to the local requirements and be acceptable to the industry, trade or any other organised sector in the area.