Vocational Education: Way to Increase Employability in India.

Vocational education is a way for creating eloquent employment and career pathways and it's a need of an hour in the current economic situation. Promoting vocational education will support more people to respect and value skills in the country and more youths will be open to choosing skill-based jobs as opposed to earning degrees or rushing behind government jobs. Eventually, this will help in reducing unemployment in our country.

The good news is that The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has already identified vocational education as a key focus area. The NEP specifies the necessity to ensure that there is no difference between vocational education and academic streams. It also demands a minimum of 50 percent of learners in high schools and higher educational institutions to get experience in vocational education by 2025.

An imperative approach for building awareness about the immense potential of vocational education, students should be invigorated to search for internships and map the opportunities that are available locally. Once students have different introduction points, it will help them to pick up real-world exposure and identify the subjects that they can pursue. This ensures that their career pathways are well-defined and builds a sense of dignity in their desired profession. As per the current developments in vocational education, some of the sunrise streams include jobs in healthcare, tech, automotive, child care career, capital goods, education, IT-ITes, Management & Entrepreneurship, power, sports, tourism, and hospitality, telecom, green jobs, media, journalism, and manufacturing. If young people have an introduction to these at an earlier age along with 21st-century skills, they will be better equipped to move into these sectors after their secondary education.

The motive of vocational education needs to change from simply preparing a student to earn a livelihood to a more all-inclusive approach for building one’s identity, and attaining knowledge and skills. The amalgamation of vocational education in schools is most needed and to be rooted in real times and understanding how the future of work is going to evolve and nurture. This eventually helps in creating citizens who think to collaborate and contribute productively to society.

The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), established in the year 1936, is a Deemed to be university, funded by the University Grants Commission, Government of India. TISS is a Grade I university with NAAC score of 3.89/4 and NIRF 2022 rank of 60 among India Universities. It has campuses at Mumbai, Tuljapur, Guwahati and Hyderabad.

The Vocational Education Programmes are imparted through the School of Vocational Education (SVE). The focus is on developing job- specific skills, as Internship Embedded Skill Training Programmes during which students may also earn a modest stipend in select skill knowledge sectors. For details, visit the website (sve.tiss.edu).