Need to remove stigma attached to vocational education: Hamid Ansari

NEW DELHI: Initiatives of the government have to be made "economically rewarding" for persons to become skilled as there is still a stigma attached to vocational education, Vice President Hamid Ansari said today. A changing the mindset towards vocational educational is also important as vocational education is considered to be the last resort for students, he said.

"...efforts would have to be complemented by necessary changes which make it economically rewarding for persons to become skilled," Ansari said, inaugurating a conference on skilling in schools. He said that despite best of efforts, it is a challenge to implement vocational educational in the school curriculum primarily due to the mindset of the people which attaches a kind of social stigma to vocational studies. This drives students into aimlessly pursuing formal degrees without any employability, he said.

He said that as against enrolment in school education which is 227 million, net enrolment in vocational education and training courses is only around 3.5 million per year. This compares poorly with 90 million in China and 11 million in US.

Referring to a FICCI study, he said if the country's GDP was to grow at an average rate of about 8 per cent till 2022, India would require a skilled workforce of 500 million persons by 2022, with around 12 million people expected to join the workforce every year. "This would require enhancing the skilling and technical education capacity to about 15 million from the current 3.5 million per annum," he said.

Ansari spelt out various government initiatives towards the skilling initiatives which include setting up of the Prime Minister's National Council on Skill Development with a vision to create 500 million skilled people by 2022.