STRATEGIES FOR IMPLEMENTATION
5.1Preparation 5.1.1 Probably more reforms and, innovative educational plans have failed for lack of adequate preparation than for any inherent errors or defects in the plan. And in our society where planning and programming have reached quite high and sophisticated levels, the need for taking time and expending equal effort on preparation for executing the plan is urgent, and important. Most States and the Central Board of Secondary Education have already launched this plus two stage. It is recommended that all authorities now pause in the further phases, of the execution of the plus two stage and take time to review their programmes in the light of the guidelines set forth in this report before starting out on the next phase of the Higher Secondary stage.
5.2 Flexible Streaming 5.2.1 One of the issues on which further thought might be given relates to the question of streaming of students into the General Education and the Vocationalised Education Spectrums. It is recommended that there be no rigid streaming of courses into the General Education and Vocationalised Education Spectrums. Each school should be allowed to offer such General Education and Vocational Courses in accordance with the facilities available and the demands in the region. The student on his side should be free to offer either the General Education or Vocationalised Courses or a mix of the two, particularly in relation to the vocational courses referred in Chapter IV, Paras 4.4 to 4.6.8. There should be in-built elasticity in the choice of the General Education or the Vocationalised subjects.
5.2.2 Reference was made in Chapter 11, Paragraph 2.4.1, of the many possible crossover points between the General Education and Vocationalised Education Spectrums, both during and after the higher secondary stage. This could be effectuated through several provisions. One would be for a student to be registered at his request in one Spectrum provisionally for one semester/term, at the end of which he may decide what he wants to learn, involving in some cases a switch over. A second provision could be a midway correction, that is at the end of XIth Class, involving in some cases taking additional credits or some remedial learning to make up the time and subjects lag. And then, there are the opportunities of continuing education either in the formal educational system (coming back to the higher secondary stage for a course in the other Spectrum or switching at the tertiary stage to the other set of courses) and the various non-formal education and training programmes. These cross-over points will ensure that there will be no hard and fast rule about streaming, that no learner need be labelled all his life as 'a general education' man or 'vocational education' woman, but can learn what he or she wants within the limits of (a) his/her aptitudes, (b) employment demands and (c) constraints of social justice.
5.3 Models of Elective Subjects 5.3.1. The recommendation on streaming leads on logically to the elective models. It is recommended that three models in the offering of selective subjects by schools be envisaged and implemented.
(i) Those offering only the General Education Spectrum and its elective subjects ;
(ii) Those offering only the Vocationalised Education Spectrum and its elective subjects ; and
(iii) Those offering both General Education and Vocationalised Education Courses and their elective subjects.
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The third model, of schools offering both the spectrums, will be the generality for the schools in -the rural areas where the offerings will include some of the courses under General Education and parts of Agriculture and courses in related subjects. For schools located in the urban area which by and large offer general Education Courses, some vocationalised courses like, stenography, accounting and auditing, business and office management, which are related to the General Education elective subjects, such as Commerce, Economics and Mathematics are relevant. Both to adhere to the philosophy of the im- portance and validity of work based vocationalised learning and to avoid creating a new derogatory distinction between schools, the third model should be the generality at least for the Sixth Plan. Thus, for instance, if good urban schools which are usually the pace setters of book based learning do not offer any vocational courses, despite their learning attainments under SUPW, vocationalisation may come to be classed as not being the haltmark of first rank schools.
5.4Vocational Survey and Location of Schools 5.4.1 Vocationalised study requires careful prior or post-hoc preparation. It is recommended that with regard to the offering of vocationalised courses in rural or urban, schools, a vocational survey of the area-metropolitan, block, taluk, district or state-be undertaken, such surveys being done, even in cases where the vocational courses have been started. The aim. of such surveys is to make reasonably accurate estimates of manpower requirements in the area, the range of available occupations, the trend of emerging vocations, the details of the levels of competencies needed, the approximate duration for which such competencies may be in demand, and the extent to which educational and training facilities are available in the neighbourhood to provide the required competencies. In a society such as ours facing serious resource constraints, it is the path of prudence for new vocationalised courses being started only when the survey data point to the need. In the case of courses that have already been started, there is always the possibility of mid-way correction, if needed. The survey-path would avoid the costly waste of persisting in an initial error.
5.4.2 Another subsidiary aim, certainly a spin off effect of the survey, would be to provide the data for the location of schools with vocationalised education courses which will depend on, potential student demand, infrastructural facilities including land laboratory, demonstration-farm, or cattle shed, as well as libraries, and qualified teaching staff. Since most of the Higher Secondary schools are located in urban or semi-urban areas, good high schools in rural areas should be identified and additional facilities provided for them to offer the plus 2 course. In the selection of schools, it is recommended that the location of schools in the rural sector be given priority.
5.5 Use of Available Facilities and Futures 5.5.1 The third all-India Educational Survey reports that there are about 9,700 institutions in the country providing facilities for Higher Secondary general education, of which 4,100 are catering for the "rural needs" and the remaining 5,600 for "urban needs". The 4, 1 00 institutions are located in district or taluk headquarters which are themselves urban or semi-urban centres. Of the total,population of about 62 crores of the country, about 48 crores live in the village's and the remaining 14 crores in the urban centres. Yet, the rural population contributes only 6 lakhs of students to the higher secondary education, while the urban population of 14 crores contributes 9 lacs. For vocational courses, at this stage there arc 327 polytechnics, 361 industrial training institutes, about 560 paramedical schools, 120 commerce schools, 22 veterinary schools and 3 mining schools. These will be able to absorb about 2.5 lakhs of students every year. This means that for about 3.5 lakhs of students the vocationalised spectrum recommended earlier must make provision, which is costly and difficult, unless phased over a period of 10 to 15 years.
5.5.2 As noted earlier, all the existing vocational institutions are equipped for a total enrolment of 2.5 lakhs. The polytechnics admit annually about 40,000 students in
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courses, of which the majority are designed for instruction, for three years and some for two years of instruction. The ITIs/apprenticeship programmes offer training in 53/103 trades, of durations ranging from 6 months to 4 years, of which about 40 trades require a pass in the 10th Standard examination and provide training to about 1 lakh students. Excluding a dozen courses or so, the rest are designed to cater to the need of industry and government services, especially in the Public Works and Electricity Departments. The paramedical and veterinary schools provide training for about 5,200 students. All others such as Commerce and Home Science schools may be assumed to provide for an additional enrolment capacity of about 50,000. To economise on the financial investment on infrastructural facilities, it is recommended that the spare capacity in all these schools be used and the enrolment be increased through running double shifts wherever it is feasible and whenever further demands for technical skills and competencies arise in the neighbourhood, including as necessary adding new courses and strengthening the existing facilities. By this strategy it is possible not only to put the available equipment to fuller use, but also to increase the capacity to train an additional 50,000 students-about 10,000 in Polytechnics, 20,000 in ITI's and 20,000 in other vocational schools.
5.5.3 Looking at the present and the immediate future, we need about 4,000 Higher Secondary Schools to provide a variety of vocational courses of various duration from among the 9,700 Higher Secondary Schools/Intermediate Colleges/Junior Colleges to supplement the Polytechnics, ITIs and Para-medical Schools, and to effectively provide vocationalised education for about 50 per cent of the students who pass out of High Schools if the present student enrolment continues to remain static. To make adequate provision for an anticipated increase of 25 per cent in the enrolment by 1988, an, additional 1,500 schools for vocational courses will be needed, which means an addition of about 150 new schools each year commencing from 1978. Since little or no vocationalised education facilities are really available for rural students, it is again recommended that all the new schools, should be constructed in rural areas and should be adequately equipped.
5.6 Counselling and Placement 5.6.1 With the development of the General Education and the Vocationalised Education Courses and their elective subjects, there is need to advise students and parents on the choice of course, and arrange for placement when the course is completed. As vocationa- lisation is extended, it is recommended that Counselling and Placement Officers be appointed in clusters of 3 or 4 schools, particularly in rural areas to start with. Their function will be to advise students with a rural or urban poverty background on, the choice of elective subjects, organise for them remedial courses to make up deficiencies in interested areas, and help use available facilities to improve their performance. Their other function of placement requires that they have close liaison with employment agencies and agencies (banks) promoting self-employment and entrepreneurship. These required qualities have implications for the programmes where such counselling specialists are trained.
5.7 Teachers 5.7.1 With the introduction of socially useful productive work and community service as compulsory and integral part of education at the higher secondary stage for all students offering General Education and the launching of Vocationalised courses, there is need for reorganisation, of teacher-education. Unless a teacher is prepared by way of pre-service and in-service education to take up these new challenges of education, the objective of the plus 2 reform will be a non-starter. The elective subjects under General Education (which bring down the first year undergraduate curriculum to Class XII), also necessitate a fresh look at the contents and methodology of teacher- education, and call for orientation of existing teachers through in- service courses. It is recommended that both pre-service and in- service teacher education should be so organised as to bring about the proposed changes at this stage of education. The universities which are responsible for pre-service
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teacher education are requested to reorganise and reconstruct the teacher education curriculum for graduate and post-graduate classes, so that their products who join the teaching profession are truly and conceptually committed to socially useful productive work and community service. Such an attitudinal change in the future generation of teachers will facilitate a similar attitudinal change in the school going children. Similarly, the new emphasis on practical work and vocationalisation of education has also to be incorporated in the teacher education curriculum so that the availability of suitable teachers to teach vocational courses may be ensured for the future. For instance, a teacher teaching vocational agriculture, must be able to meet the educational needs of farmers and must be equally, at home in the classroom, in the farm mechanic shops and in the farms of the community. Besides pie-service education, in-service courses for existing teachers in schools will have to be organised on a mass scale. The Universities, the Teachers' Training Colleges, State Councils of Educational Research and Training (SCERTs), State Institute of Education, State Institutes of Science Education, NCERT, Boards of Secondary Education, Agricultural Universities, institutions like ICAR, and all others who are engaged in the programme of orientation, of teachers should be actively involved in this task. New demands of education have posed new challenges for the teachers and it is only through in-service and refresher courses that the teachers can adequately meet the challenges of change. In this context it is also recommended that at the start there should not be insistence an post-graduate qualification in respect of teachers of vocational courses. What is needed is means of developing the required skills and competencies in particular vocations and for this, services of persons who have had actual experience of on-the-job may be fruitfully utilised to teach vocational courses. Part-time teachers may also be appointed, wherever necessary.
5.8 Curriculum and Textbooks 5.8.1 Reference was made earlier to the enriched curriculum for the Elective subjects under the General Education Course consequent on bringing the first year under-graduate curriculum into the plus 2 stage. On the vocationalised sector, as the data become available from the survey reports, experts drawn from the agricultural, self- employing and employing agencies in appropriate vocations for which the courses have to be designed and academics should be entrusted with the responsibility of developing suitable curricula, keeping in view the- depth of knowledge, the levels of competencies expected and linkages to be established for further education and training. The curricula should be so stractured that the courses lend themselves to imparting instruction in terms of well connected modules to enable the students to choose and combine them according to their needs'. Evaluation should be continuous and grades or marks should be awarded on completion of every module. The minimum number of modules for the award of certificates or diploma should be clearly indicated.
5.8.2 Suitable books and teaching aids arc important inputs for the success of both the groups of courses, At present suitable text- books for some general and vocational courses are not readily available. In order to impart instruction in vocational courses, in agricultural rural related subjects, it is recommended that the books be written on a priority basis to suit local (sentiment and mode available to the schools. In some general education and commercial subjects where text-books produced in other countries are available, these books may be adapted and translated in Indian languages.
5.9 Apprenticeship and Recruitment Policy 5.91 Apprenticeship facilities should be extended to all the students who complete education in vocational streams if they desire to benefit from such training. Suitable rebates of training should be worked out, taking into account the contents of the curricula, depth of knowledge and the levels of skill competence. This will have considerable influence on those who have joined the vocational streams at present, and are doubtful about the extension of this facility.
5.9.2 The largest proportion of the workmen force belongs to the middle level employment, whether it be in the agriculture/agro or other industries or in trade and business or
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hospitals. An, analysis of various advertisements for a variety of jobs (see Madras Institute of Development Studies publication, Educational Profile of Jobs in Tamil Nadu) indicates that about 80 per cent of them prescribe university degrees as essential qualifications, irrespective of the needs and requirements of the job. Most of these positions in fact do not need university degree skills. What is needed often is adequate skills and proficiency to perform duties efficiently and this required proficiency can be secured through suitable vocational training without a university education. It is recommended that the recruitment policy of the Government as well as public sector organisations should (be revised and job requirements should replace the university degrees as essential qualifications. Vocationally qualified persons should so be preferred to graduates, and be entitled to the payscales available to the graduates as long as the jobs performed are the same or similar. Also such persons should be eligible for the higher positions in the ladder, either on the basis of departmental tests or improvement of qualifications through correspondence or evening courses or blocktime training.
5.10 Vertical Mobility 5.10.1 The recommended apprenticeship and recruitment policy are part of a Package recommended to improve the prospects of the majority of those who enter the plus 2 stage and terminate their formal schooling after acquiring some vocational skills The vocational courses should not be a dead and in themselves. For those who wish to continue and improve their qualifications there should be a provision for allowing them admission to the 2nd year of the Agricultural Universities or the 3rd year of the polytechnics or of nursing colleges and other such institutions where admission requirements is a ten-year school pass. For admission to the related professional course, it would encourage vocationalisation if at least there is a provision to enable the vocational class XII leavers to seek admission to the professional courses after the person has acquired actual job experience of three years or more. This is the practice already followed in some institutions, such as the Indian Institute of Management, and may be followed profitably by other professional institutions of higher learning. The curriculum and the structure of courses of the professional institutions-specially for the first year of the course-will have to be reformulated in such a way that there is a provision for special coaching of the students who come from the job experience, to make up the deficiency, if any. The universities should not close the donors for these students who wish to pursue further studies. The universities may prepare package pre-requisite courses to make up the deficiencies of students who have pursued vocational courses and wish to pursue higher courses of study. In Class XI also students who have completed their studies in vocational or Junior Technical Schools and ITIs should be accepted for admission. Package pre-requisite courses should be drawn up to counter the deficiencies of such students entering Class XI and XII.