Vocational education for children

Abstract

India is popularly recognized as an emerging country of the world and one of the future powers. However with a population of a billion and with more than 22% of the total population below poverty line, it is grappling with several difficulties, education and unemployment being some of the major problems. Poverty stricken many households do not send their children to school and they get involved in income generating activities leading to child labor. The government has devised several legal procedures and initiatives to get rid of child labor. However it continues to exist due to several reasons which we analyze in this report. The importance of education in a country like India is well emphasized. With a majority of the population illiterate, it takes a lot of effort to get these people into the mainstream of employment. The Indian education system was established with a reason to provide education for all. A huge allocation of the budget every year is made to provide educational infrastructure and accessibility to education. However though there has been a significant increase in the enrollment of the children to these schools, the low quality of education leads to the exclusion of these children from learning even the basic skills of mathematics and science. Further the drop-out rates are high in the urban and the rural areas, doubting the efficacy of the education program. The Indian mind set of education is obsessed with getting a graduation and a degree and looking down on other means of education especially the vocational education. This has resulted in the mismatch between the skilled manpower available and the skilled manpower required. On one hand there are scores of unemployed graduates and on the other hand there is a huge shortage of skilled workers, such as plumbers, electricians, etc. It has been concluded from various studies that 86% of the employment is generated in the unorganized sector and the future growth in the employment will be in this sector. There is a shortage of skilled labor in this sector and our model is built around the demand generated by this sector. One of the chief methods to fulfill this demand is make more unskilled people skilled by the provision of vocational training. There are two types of vocational training, the formal training that is provided in the polytechnics and the informal training that is provided in as apprentices in the industries. In the model we look at providing informal training to the section of the unskilled population in the society. With this effort we would not only equip people with employable skills but empower them to become entrepreneurs and inspire their own community. Also with this effort we intend to get children beyond the age of 14, who have dropped from school and employed in degenerating jobs, to participate in the vocational training and earn a respectable means of employment and income.