Education Ministry organises one-day workshop
New Delhi:
The Ministry of Education held a one-day consultation workshop on Reimagining Vocational Education and Career Guidance for School Students. The one-day workshop was organised in collaboration with UNICEF and YuWaah on December 16, 2022. Various ideas related to reimagining, reinventing vocational education modules were discussed at length. The importance of life skills — both vertical and horizontal, aspirational disconnect and information asymmetry in the uptake of vocational education school, and giving a gender perspective to vocational education were also focussed.
According to an official statement, in the light of newly launched National Education Policy, 2020 the aim should be to empower students with skills inclduing cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, robotic process automation, cybersecurity so that vocational graduates could compete in the global economy. The need to establish virtual labs, so that all students have equal access to high-quality practical and hands-on experience, was also stressed upon during the one-day workshop.
The consultation workshop also benefitted from the feedback from students who have taken vocational programmes including multi-skilling course and Information Technology course.
Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, Sanjay Kumar, chaired the consultation workshop and two roundtable interactions including with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Directorate General of Training (ITI), PSSCIVE,Bhopal, NCERT, CBSE, NCVET, AICTE.
The workshop and roundtable interaction were also attended by various experts from PwC, YuWaah, Civil Society organizations, state education department, practitioners and organisations working in the fields of vocational education and career counselling, corporates and current and passed out students.
During the keynote address, the Secretary of Department of School Education and Literacy pointed out that India needs to catch up with other countries in terms of skilling the workforce through formal vocational training during the student years. NEP 2020 has identified such issues and has suggested remedial measures, he added.
The consultations were also addressed by Ms. Dhuwarakha Sriram Chief of Generation Unlimited (YuWaah), Youth Development and Partnerships and Terry Durian, Chief of Education, UNICEF.
The 2nd Roundtable deliberated upon the current systems of career counseling in schools and what are the key learnings and best practices. Secretary, DOSEL stated that solutions should focus on building an institutional model of career counseling in schools with scale, speed and sustainability utilising technological innovations including artificial intelligence. He also stated that there was a need to map resources and build a database of the same. Discussions on career guidance also reflected on the role of physical interventions and career counselling that could be done in schools itself.
