Students’ job prospects take a beating due to lack of vocational courses in schools

Vocational courses are usually aimed at equipping students, especially girls in rural areas who cannot pursue engineering or medicine degree programmes, with practical skills to take up a specific profession like tailoring, textile dress designing and nursing.

However, the last recruitment for such faculty was reportedly made in 2007, and several hundred teachers who took vocational course classes for the students have retired from the services.

At present, there are about 2,600 government and approximately 1,600 government-aided higher secondary schools functioning and providing education to about ten lakh students of Classes 11 and Class 12 across the State.

A senior official from the School Education Department told DT Next that vocational courses, which is meant for slow learners, could not be conducted in about 650 schools due to a lack of teachers.

“A decade ago, more than 40 subjects were available for the students, who pursued vocational courses,” the official said, adding that however, “the number of subjects shrunk to 12 as most of the courses could not survive due to no proper textbooks and teachers to teach the students”.

Mentioning that each district on average has 20 government higher secondary schools which do not have vocational courses, the official said that steps are being taken to fill up the vacant posts for vocational teachers. The Teachers Recruitment Board will issue a notification in this regard very soon, the official added.

Further, according to a source from the Directorate of School Education, the government is planning to convert more than 100 high schools to higher secondary schools that will not have vocational courses. Commenting on the issue, the Tamil Nadu Higher Secondary School Vocational Teachers Association State secretary, SN Janardhanan, warned that in another few years, more than 85% of vocational teachers will be retiring from the services, and the government will then be forced to scrap such courses in State-run schools in the future.

“Further closure of vocational courses will surely affect female students,” Janardhanan said, adding that lakhs of girl students, who pursued vocational courses in the past, were self-employed and employed as nurses in various hospitals.

Janardhanan pointed that several lakh male students also benefited from vocational courses by taking up self-employment. “More than 60% of students, who pursue vocational courses, got self-employed,” he said.