Vocational Education
Union human resource development (HRD) minister Kapil Sibal on Tuesday announced reforms in the Central Board of School Education (CBSE) to develop skill sets of students through vocational education. In an interaction with members of the Rotary Club, he emphasised the need to introduce specialised education which will hone students’ skills.
He announced that by May 2011, the board will be divided into ‘academic’ and ‘vocational’. Under the vocational board, the government will introduce a national vocational framework for students from Std IX to XII. This will consist of eight levels of a range of credit-based vocational courses. A number of courses like animation, paramedical, automobile, hospitality, etc will be offered under such a set-up.
Sibal said that he had a few meetings with experts from the automobile sector.
“There are 150 sectors in the automobile industry in which students can specialise. We will create a separate syllabus for such specialised courses,” he said. He added that he was in talks with state governments to implement a similar project in state boards. “In Maharashtra, I have already had two meetings with state ministers over this issue,” he said.
“Information is empowerment, and technology should enable everyone to access this information. There should be a free flow of this information. We cannot impose charges on it, because if a student is unable to access it, the state would be acting against the Right to Education,” he said.
DNA
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