By Tarun Raina:
A vocation can be described as a career or calling to find a suitable career choice. In simpler words, vocational courses are practical courses through which one gains skills and experience directly linked to a career in future.
It is an intriguing field, with quite a bit of potential for an aggressively expanding industrial sector, as vocational courses equip people with the right skills to be a part of the strong managerial workforce.
In the Delhi region alone, the number of students taking CBSE’s Class 12th exam shot up to 2,34,653 in 2012 from 2,05,384 two years ago. Year on year, the number of all-India candidates taking the school-leaving exams grows by 10%. With a flood of students passing out each year and the drought of college seats, vocational courses are options to be looked into. For a market driven economy, education needs to be tailored and directly related to jobs. According to experts, people those who have an education that prepares them for a profession, have a far greater edge in the world.
In general, vocational courses are offered in six broad disciplines such as Agriculture, Business and Commerce, Humanities, Engineering and Technology, Home Science, Health and Paramedical Skills. For a secure future for ourselves and the country at large, some of the above disciplines are futuristic and hold the key to the betterment of the future. They are;
Agricultural:
Agricultural education is a vast subject including agriculture, food production, research, etc. under its belt. This belt is an important accessory of our countries development. So it is important to keep it buckled up. Due to the broadness this industry involves according to global, regional and local pressures including those originating from political, societal and technological changes and entry of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the sector and the problem of farmer suicides have made this field of vocational education important and the need of the hour. Due to its importance in the future and a never ending research base a student can very easily frame a career out of this subject.
Leisure, Travel and Tourism:
With a studded culture and striking sites to visit in India, vocational education in travel and tourism has a wide scope. It is one of the largest foreign exchange earners, providing employment directly and indirectly to millions of people worldwide through many service areas. Some of these service areas are the government tourism departments, the immigration and the customs services, the travel agencies, the airlines, the tour operators, and the hotels. The career in the travel and tourism industry is essentially concerned with providing services for people who are away from home, on business or holiday. It requires assessing the needs of tourists and businessmen and helping them make the best possible travel arrangements from the many travel options available, making this field interesting for students with handsome pay packages lined up.
Vocational Engineering:
Engineering has been identified as a key industry and economic driver that will strengthen the economy of the world in the coming decade. As a result, many universities have established new vocational programs in engineering fields. Fields like mechanical, electronics, computers, chemical, civil etc. are the most sought after. It is the backbone of every industry, as it designs and also builds structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes making it one of the most important and most sought after vocational course.
Health and Social Care:
With the onset of sedentary lifestyle and the increase in the number and types of diseases health and social care have become a much needed and important profession. Vocational education in this field includes health care, clinical care, personal hygiene, nursing, paramedics etc. Depending on their qualification, students may start off as care assistants and develop care pathways to become doctors, nurses, social workers, physiotherapists, counsellors, psychotherapists, Paramedics or a range of other related occupations.
Media and information:
With electronic media becoming the primary mode of communication in today’s world and a key feature of every organisation, vocational education in this field can prove to be very fruitful and engaging. With courses like printing, electronic advertising, electronic customer services, sales promotion etc. A person can analyze, evaluate, and create messages in a wide variety of media modes, genres, and forms showing his creativity and credibility.
A person can choose a course in which he has an aptitude or talent in. To render this, vocational guidance is required in schools as well as other levels of education, to guide a person to formal (following a structured training program) or informal (training to cater his/her ancestral trade or occupation) vocational courses.
In today’s world with cut throat competition, just having a degree in hand does not comply that you get a job; you need to have the skills needed to do the job. Vocational courses were introduced with this idea to increase the employability of graduates. Equipping them with the skills needed for self-employment, improving the employability of girl students and making the graduate course suited to local needs and conditions.
Due to liberalization and globalisation and the revolution in information technology, many new sectors opened up and new job opportunities were also thrown up which required only minimum training. Vocational courses were meant to incorporate all these changes and impart skills to the students undergoing vocational courses accordingly.
With increasing global pressure and the shaken economic condition around the world companies now look for people with the skill in hand and not on paper, as they have to pay lesser salaries to them. This is the reason for maximum number of jobs being outsourced now a day’s as people living in countries with a lot of population and a suitable exchange rate, demand very less against the people living in their own countries.