Vocational Education can be defined as the education that is based on occupation and employment. Vocational Education is also known as career and technical education (CTE) or technical and vocational education and training (TVET).It prepares people for specific trades, crafts and careers at various levels in all spheres of life. It involves various practical activities. It is sometimes referred as technical education because the trainee directly develops expertise in a particular group of techniques. Vocational education is related to the age-old apprenticeship system of learning. In other words Vocational Education may be classified as teaching procedural knowledge. Vocational education consists basically of practical courses through which one gains skills and experience directly linked to a career in future. It helps students to be skilled and in turn, offers better employment opportunities.
Vocational courses are primarily designed in such a way that they impart a thorough application-based study wherein theoretical concepts of a field are not studied independently but are subordinated to the understanding of techno-operational aspects of specific job.
Vocational education consists basically of practical courses through which one gains skills and experience directly linked to a career in future. It helps students to be skilled and in turn, offers better employment opportunities.
The technical and vocational education and training system (TVET) in India develops human resource through a three-tier system:

• Graduate and post-graduate level specialists (e.g. IITs, NITs, and engineering colleges) trained as engineers and technologists.
• Diploma-level graduates who are trained at Polytechnics as technicians and supervisors.
• Certificate-level for higher secondary students in the vocational stream and craft people trained in ITIs as well as through formal apprenticeships as semiskilled and skilled workers.

Vocational Education and Training (VET) is an important element of the nation’s education initiative. In order for Vocational Education to play its part effectively in the changing national context and for India to enjoy the fruits of the demographic dividend, there is an urgent need to redefine the critical elements of imparting vocational education and training to make them flexible, contemporary, relevant, inclusive and creative. The Government is well aware of the important role of Vocational education and has already taken a number of important initiatives in this area.

Current Scenario of Vocational Education and Training in India

The structure of current education system can be described as below

The World Bank report of 2006, In India, skill acquisition takes place through two basic structural streams – a small formal one and a large informal one. Details of major formal sources are listed in table below-: S shows that among persons of age 15-29 only about 2 per cent reported to have received formal vocational training and another 8 per cent reported to have received non formal vocational training. The proportion of persons (15-29 years) who received formal vocational training was the highest among the unemployed. The proportion was around 3 per cent for the employed, 11 percent for the unemployed and 2 per cent for persons not in the labour force.

National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT)
National Council for Vocational Training, an advisory body, was set up by the Government of India in the year 1956. The National Council is chaired by the Minister of Labour, with members from different Central and State Government Departments, Employers and Workers organizations, Professional and Learned Bodies, All India Council for Technical Education, Scheduled castes and Scheduled tribes, All India Women’s Organization, etc. And State Councils for Vocational Training at the State level and Trade Committees have been established to assist the NCVT. Main mandate of the NCVT, according to DGE&T, is to establish and award National Trade Certificates in engineering, non-engineering, building, textile, leather trades and such other trades which are brought within its scope by the Government of India. It also prescribes standards in respect of syllabi, equipment, scales of accommodation, duration of courses and methods of training. It also conducts tests in various trade courses and lays down standards of proficiency required for passing the examination leading to the award of National Trade Certificate etc. A new direction has been given to Vocational Education by NCVT.

Problems for Vocational Education Implementation
Vocational training has been successful in India only in industrial training institutes and that too in engineering trades. There are many private institutes in India which offer courses in vocational training and finishing, but most of them have not been recognized by the Government. Firstly required steps should be taken to recognize appropriate institutes those fulfill the underlined criteria. Vocational Higher Secondary schools are under MHRD in India. This need to be made strong as this is the base of Vocational Education.

Through, the study of the prevalent Vocational Education System in India the following problem areas have been identified -:

1. There is a high drop-out rate at Secondary level.
2. Vocational Education is presently offered at Grade 11, 12th .
3. Private & Industry Participation is lacking.
4. Less number of Vocational Institutes in the country.
5. Not adequate number of trained faculty.
6. Vocationalization at all levels has not been successful.
7. Lacking of new sectors of vocational education and skills training.
8. Acute shortage of skilled instructors and teachers in the country.
9. Lack of opportunities for continuous skill up-gradation.
10. Current education system is non-responsive to the skill demands of the existing and future industry, leading to a supply-demand gap on various counts.
11. Outside the school system, relevant vocational training centers are ill-equipped to handle the demand and are accessible to only a selected number of students who have passed at least level 10 and 10+.
12. Huge demand-supply skill gap. 90% of the jobs in India are “skill based”; entailing the requirement of vocational training. It is estimated that only 5% of the youth in India are vocationally trained.
13. Most of the Vocational Education Training Institutes are characterized by structurally rigid and outdated centralized syllabi that do not have much sync with the prevailing market conditions.
14. Absence of monitoring committee. Apart from that However there is a lot of variation among the various programs in terms of duration, target group, entry qualifications, testing and certification, curriculum, etc. which has resulted in problems related to recognition of qualifications, equivalence and vertical mobility.

Problem Areas in present Vocational Education and Training System

1. There are 220 million children who go to school in India. Of these only around 12% C education in India and even that is under-utilized. World Bank Report suggests that the enrolment figure is less than three per cent of the students attending Grades 11-12. This implies that between 350,000 to 400,000 students are enrolled in vocational education, which works out to less than three per cent of the 14 million students or more in Grades 11 and 12, implying that less than one per cent of students who had entered Grade 1 over the last decade or so would have eventually participated in vocational education.
2. Vocational Education is presently offered at Grade 11, 12th – however students reaching this Grade aspire for higher education. Since the present system does not allow vertical mobility, skills obtained are lost. Enrollment in 11th & 12th Grade of vocational education is only 3% of students at upper secondary level. About 6800 schools enroll 400,000 students in vocational education schemes utilizing only 40% of the available student capacity in these schools.
3. International experience suggests that what employers mostly want are young workers with strong basic academic skills and not just vocational skills. The present system does not emphasize general academic skills. The relative wages of workers with secondary education are increasing.
4. Private & Industry Participation is lacking. There are no incentives for private players to enter the field of vocational education.
5. Present regulations are very rigid. In-Service Training is required but not prevalent today. There is no opportunity for continuous skill up-gradation.
6. There is a lack of experienced and qualified teachers to train students on vocational skills. In foreign countries Bachelors of Vocational Education (BVE) is often a mandatory qualification for teachers. However, in India no specific qualifications are being imparted for Vocational Education teachers.
7. Vocationalization at all levels has not been successful. Poor quality of training is not in line with industry needs.
8. There is no definite path for vocational students to move from one level / sector to another level / sector. Mobility is not defined and hence students do not have a clear path in vocational education.
9. No clear policy or system of vocational education leading to certification / degrees presently available for the unorganized / informal sector. No Credit System has been formulated for the same. Over 90% of employment in India is in the Informal sector. JSS offers 255 types of vocational courses to 1.5 million people, Community Polytechnics train about 450,000 people within communities annually and NIOS offers 85 courses through 700 providers. None of these programs have been rigorously evaluated, till date.
10. Expansion of vocational sector is happening without consideration for present problems.

Government Initiatives

National Vocational Qualification Framework: To stimulate and support reforms in skills development and to facilitate nationally standardized and acceptable, international comparability of qualifications, a “National Vocational Qualifications Framework” is being established by the Central Government. Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) has resolved to set up an inter-ministerial group which would also include representatives of State Governments to develop guidelines for such a National Framework.

The unified system of national qualification will cover schools, vocational education and training institutions and higher education sector. NVQF will be based on nationally recognized occupational standards which details listing of all major activities that a worker must perform in the occupation or competency standards – a detailed listing of the knowledge, skills and attitude that a worker should possess to perform a task written by the particular employment-led sector skills council.

The National Skill Development Policy 2009 has proposed the following features for the framework:-

1. Competency based qualifications and certification on the basis of nationally agreed standards and criteria;
2. Certification for learning achievement and qualification;
3. A range of national qualification levels – based on criteria with respect to responsibility, complexity of activities, and transferability of competencies;
4. The avoidance of duplication and overlapping of qualifications while assuring the inclusion of all training needs;
5. Modular character where achievement can be made in small steps and accumulated for gaining recognizable qualification; f
6. Quality Assurance regime that would promote the portability of skills and labour market mobility;
7. Lifelong learning through an improved skill recognition system; recognition of prior learning whether in formal, non-formal or informal arrangements;
8. Open and flexible system which will permit competent individuals to accumulate their knowledge and skill through testing & certification into higher diploma and degree;
9. Different learning pathways – academic and vocational – that integrate formal and non-formal learning, notably learning in the workplace, and that offer vertical mobility from vocational to academic learning;
10. Guidance for individuals in their choice of training and career planning;
11. Comparability of general educational and vocational qualifications at appropriate levels;
12. Nationally agreed framework of affiliation and accreditation of institutions;
13. Multiple certification agencies/institutions will be encouraged within NVQF.

Execution of Vocational training

Ministries of Human Resource Development and Labour and Employment are the key decision makers for Vocational Education and Training in India.

• Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE) and Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) are the two ministries formulating policies for the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector in India
• MHRD is assisted by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) as highlighted:
• AICTE: Prepares curriculum and imparts vocational higher education through polytechnics
• NCERT: Prepares curriculum and imparts vocational education at school level through open schools
• MoLE is assisted by Directorate General of Employment and Training (DGE&T) which imparts vocational training through Craftsmen Training Scheme (CTS) and Skills Development Initiative Scheme (SDIS)
• CTS: Provide training to 1.2 million people through Industrial Training Institutes (it is)
• SDIS: Provide training to 1 million people through Vocational Training Providers (VTPs)
• Both the ministries are developing separate frameworks called National Vocational Qualification Framework (NVQF) and National Vocational Educational Qualification Framework (NVEQF) for curriculum design, tandardization and certification
• National Policy on Skills Development (NPSD) is a Prime Minister’s initiative and is the main driver policy:
• It has set a target of providing skills training to 500 million people by 2022
• The target has been divided between 20 ministries/departments/organizations
• Under NPSD, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), a Public Private Partnership (PPP) has been set up to provide funding, facilitation and advocacy by means of 21 Sector Skill Councils (SSCs)
• All policies are framed at the Centre and implemented at state level by the state governments/departments

MHRD regulates polytechnics and school-level vocational education while MoLE regulates Industrial Training Institutes and Vocational Training Providers

National Policy on skill development aims to train 500 million people in vocational skills by 2022. The following is the frame work of the policy

Source: MoL&E, Synovate Interviews & Analysis

References

International Journal of Education and Information Studies. ISSN 2277-3169 Volume 4, Number 1 (2014), pp. 55-58 © Research India Publications http://www.ripublication.com Vocational Education in India Miss Kusum Kaushik Freelance Content Writer and Technical Writer Certified Technical Writer from Tech Total Solutions Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad Pursuing PG Diploma in Technical Writing from Symbiosis(SCDL) Pursuing M.A. (Mass Comm)
Dr.S.S.Jena Chairman, NIOS www.nios.ac.in International Conference on “ Prior Learning: A Key to Lifelong Learning” Organised by NLMA, MHRD & UNESCO Institute of Life long Learning June 29-30, 2012 India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
Concept note on need for vocationalisation of education in india from symbiosis – http://www.scdl.net/downloads/vocationaluniversityconceptnote.pdf

Assignment

1. Identify different types of vocational training institutions, courses and corresponding professions.
2. Propose vocational courses in your filed of specialization as per the proforma given below.
   

   Major Area	Title of vocational education/ skill development module	Nature of vocation	Target group	Duration of module	Stake holder / organization