STATUS OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN TAMILNADU
An Exploratory Study
Prof. K. Ramakrishnan
Principal Investigator
Dr. K. Vivekanandan
Co-Principal Investigator
Bharathiar University
Coimbatore
January 2006
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary
Chapter 1
Background and Scope of Study 1
Chapter 2
Methodology 3
Chapter 3
Analysis of Data and Findings 9
Chapter 4
Conclusions and Recommendations 31
Appendixes
1.1. Communication from Tamilnadu State Planning Commission
1.2. Research Agenda Suggested by Prof. Ramakrishnan
1.3. Final Research Proposal
2.1. Format for DTE - Information about polytechnics
2.2. Format for DSE - Information on H Secondary Schools with Vocational Stream
2.3. Format for CET - Information on Industrial Training Institutes (ITI-s)
2.4. Questionnaire for individual polytechnics
2.5. Questionnaire for individual ITI-s
2.6. Questionnaire for individual HSS-Vocational Stream
2.7. Guidelines for Field Workers
2.8. Questionnaire for respondents who had completed VET
2.9. Questionnaire for respondents from polytechnics
2.10. Questionnaire for respondents from ITI-s
2.11. Questionnaire for respondents from HSS-Vocational Stream
2.12. Checklist for employers
2.13. List of Officials met
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Highlights of the existing scene
· Nearly two lakhs of students go through the vocational education and training programmes every year. Various unregulated institutions and programmes are also present in this sector.
· The self-financed institutions dominate the vocational education sector excepting in the case of the vocational stream of the HSS stage, where surprisingly not a single self-financed school offers vocational stream.
· There are no norms for fees being collected by the self-financed polytechnics and Industrial Training Centers / Schools.
· The National Council of Vocational Education and Training prescribes a curriculum which is uniform all across the country and the certificate examination papers are not offered in local languages.
· There was no prescribed curriculum for the industrial schools offering a large number of courses. In July 2005, some attempt has been apparently made.
· The curriculum for the vocational stream at the HSS stage has not been reviewed since the inception of the courses in 1978.
· No effort by the state to have standard textbooks designed and approved. Only coaching for examination oriented books are available commercially.
· The Directorate of Employment doest not classify the SCVET certificate or the vocational stream of the HSS under “vocational trade” for registration of the candidates completing these courses.
· The vocational training institutions in general suffer from the lack of contemporary equipment and laboratory facilities.
· Significant proportion of students joining the polytechnics do so after studying or completing 12th standard though the eligibility requirement is only 10th pass. The wastage rate (proportion that does not complete the programme) is also not insignificant.
· In general those who join vocational programmes seem to be those who are not high scorers in the 10th / 12th examinations. The HSS Vocational stream seems to be the last resort for continuing some education or the choice for the purpose of availing the special quota of engineering degree seats.
· Many of those who completed VET are not very well off either in terms of employability or earnings. Most indicated the lack of practical training as a major problem during their programme of study / training.
· Apprenticeship Scheme implementation is not very satisfactory: the norms are not being followed by the industry; the students do not get adequate support from training institutions to get placed as apprentices.
Summary of Recommendations
· Separate advisory and implementing agencies for vocational education preferably under the Department of School Education.
· Advisory agency to have representatives from industries besides educationists.
· Implementing agency to be headed by a Director on par with the Director of School Education and provided with adequate support personnel, probably by shifting the officials from the training wing of the Department of Employment and Training.
· Better monitoring and regulation of vocational training institutes through the proposed Directorate of Vocational Education and Training.
· State Vocational Boards certification programme to be streamlined, strengthened and duly recognised.
· Explore the possibility of merging the 3-year diploma programmes and the vocational courses at the higher secondary schools in gradual phases and conduct only certificate programs for recognition by the National Board.
· Strengthen existing infrastructure in vocational institutions; pool resources already available (including those in degree offering colleges) by appropriate mechanisms of incentives.
· Encourage industries to get involved in vocational training through targeted support for production-cum-training centers.
· State Council of Education Research and Training to be strengthened with a wing to devote to research on vocational education and training for vocational program teachers and trainers.
· Implement the apprenticeship scheme more thoroughly through better outreach programs as well as stricter enforcement of the act.
· Never forget that the competitiveness of the economy depends also on the quality of the production worker in the shop floor or at the lowest end of the value chain and hence quality vocational education is not only a strategy to help the disadvantaged sections of the society but also is in the interests of overall economic development.
VET Study: Ramakrishnan; Page 60
CHAPTER 1
BACKGROUND AND SCOPE OF THE STUDY
1.0. Planning Commission’s Needs
1.0.1 The government of Tamilnadu took the initiative to revamp the vocational education in the state (See Appendix 1.1) and towards that end commissioned the present study. The Principal Investigator, when first contacted by the Member Secretary of TN State Planning Commission to explore the possibility of carrying out a study, submitted an agenda for research to get a holistic picture of the state in terms of
a. the availability of diverse vocationally skilled persons;
b. the manner in which they had acquired the vocational education and training, not only through formal channels but also through informal channels such as those of being employed as helper to a carpenter, automobile mechanic etc.
c. the status of vocationally skilled persons in terms of employment, earnings, career development and such other issues;
d. the nature of the various institutions – government approved or otherwise – which offer some kind of vocational training: the details of the programmes; the fees collected; the placement track record etc.
1.0.2 However, the suggestion from the government side was to confine the study to look at the three major formal vocational training avenues – the Polytechnics, the HSS Vocational stream and the Industrial Training Institutes / Schools. Accordingly a research proposal was submitted (Appendix 1,1) which indicated that an exploratory study would be completed within a specified time frame, provided the government agencies’ cooperation in terms of providing information and facilitating obtaining information from individual institutions were assured.
1.1. The Proposal
1.1.1 Though the proposal was submitted in April 2004 the study was approved by the State Planning Commission only in July 2004 and the study could be commenced only by early December 2004 on account of procedural delays by the university in deciding whether the study could be carried out by a member of the faculty who had retired by the end of June 2004. This delay could have been avoided if the approval for the study had come before June 30 2004, when the Principal Investigator was still in service. This possible hurdle was in fact anticipated by the researcher and the Planning Commission was urged to ensure that the approval of the study by the researcher as a current member of the university system is ensured; however that did not happen. By the time the approval was received, the researcher had accepted a visiting assignment in the North Eastern Hill University, Shillong and was expected to join by August 2005. However, acceding to the suggestion by the planning commission, the researcher requested the NEHU to defer the commencement of the assignment till Mar 2005, hoping to complete the study between July and 2004 and Mar 2005. However, the earlier cited delays by the university belied that expectation too. Further difficulties in terms of the planning commission’s reluctance to release the entire amount to the university and consequent resource crunch for the researcher led to further delays. The delays in getting information from the Directorate of Employment and Training and the Director of School Education added to the delays. Only the field work – that too to a slightly reduced extent, particularly with respect to the Industrial Schools segment could be completed before the researcher left for Shillong. After that the study had to be conducted through remote control for the data organization / analysis phase and that also contributed to the delay and quality of the study.
1.1.2 Given the background to the study as above, it has been possible to carry out only an exploratory enquiry. The next chapter which describes the methodology followed would provide more details. Suffice it to mention here that even this exploratory study leads to the conclusion that there is enormous scope for radical reforms in the field of vocational education and training, particularly from the perspective of creating readily employable technical personnel and to meet the objective of enabling young men and women from economically weaker sections to become productive and gainfully employed citizens.
1.2. The Scope of the Study
1.2.1 Though there is a need to carefully evaluate the performance of a large number of vocational training opportunities offered by unregulated institutions in the emerging areas of information technology, visual communication, audio engineering and also understand the processes by which numerous skilled personal such as sign board painters, musicians serving the film industry are developed, no attempt has been possible in this direction during this study. But the nee for a comprehensive study to look at these dimensions in order that state-subsidised programmes to benefit those of the poorer sections to get trained in a vocation which best fits their inherent skills and aptitudes.
1.2.2 Finally, no attempt has been made to the very important dimension of costs: to the stakeholders: students, employers, institutions, and to the society as a whole. But this is also something that must be looked into carefully in a future study.
CHAPTER 2
METHODOLOGY
2.0. Overview
The study depended on three major sources of information:
1. The relevant government agencies and officials therein who were responsible for or connected with vocational education and training in some significant way;
2. A sample of institutions offering VET; and
3. Responses for structured questionnaires completed by a sample of those who had completed VET or were undergoing VET.
The details of the processes of collecting information from the above sources are described in greater detail in the following sections.
2.1. Collection of Information from Relevant Government Agencies.
2.1.1. The three major agencies responsible for vocational education and training in Tamilnadu, as already indicated, are a) the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) which controls and regulates the Polytechnics; b) the Department of Employment and Training (DET), under whose purview were the Industrial Training Institutes (ITI-s) / Industrial Schools; and c) the Directorate of School Education (DSE) which is responsible for the vocational stream offered in the Higher Secondary Schools. Hence the first step of the study was to send out communications (see Appendix 2.1-2.3) to these three agencies requesting information about the institutions under their purview, so that a proper sample may be selected for the study. The communications were followed up with personal visits by the Principal Investigator. While the DTE responded positively within a short time, the information from DET could be obtained only after several months. The information from DSE was the most difficult to obtain and could be obtained only after intervention from the Planning Commission. Even then the information provided was incomplete and several personal visits were required to get the complete addresses of the Higher Secondary Schools which offered vocational courses.
2.1.2. In addition to the lists of institutions offering vocational education and training, a variety of other information such as the results of recent qualifying examinations of the relevant agencies, the processes pertaining to approval of the institutions, organization structure of the agency and the roles played by the different arms of the agencies were also gathered to gain insights into the strategic and operational aspects of the agencies. Again only partial success was possible with respect to obtaining information on these dimensions. Whatever information was gleaned has been organized and presented in Section 3.1 titled “Overview of VET in TN” in the next chapter. It may be relevant to add here that more insights could have been provided in terms of suggestions on desirable administrative practices if the study had been carried out with more cooperation from the relevant agencies and without the intervening delays on account of availability of funds to the Principal Investigator.
2.1.3. In the case of the Department of Employment and Training, visits were made to the Regional Offices as well as some of the District Offices and very valuable information was gathered through personal interactions with the officials concerned. The regional and district offices also arranged for mobilising sample respondents who had completed some vocational education and training. Since, it seems that those who complete vocational stream at the plus 2 stage do not get registered as a separate category, it was not possible to mobilize such respondents through the good offices of the Directorate of Employment and Training.
2.2. Information from VET institutions
2.2.1. In order to get the most recent information it was proposed that all the institutions offering vocational education and training would be requested to provide some basic information through specially designed checklists / formats. All the polytechnics and those ITI-s and Higher Secondary schools whose addresses were available were sent the appropriate formats (see Appendix 2.4 - 2.6) along with a self addressed post card for acknowledgement of the receipt of the communication. While the response from the polytechnics to which the DTE also sent a communication asking them to provide the required information was modest, the response from the ITI-s and HSS-s were dismal. In most instances, the institutions did not bother to even return the acknowledgement card. Hence whatever information was available from the aggregate data given by the relevant agencies has been organized to suit the purposes of the report. The tables so generated are presented in the overview section of the next chapter. The details of the queries sent and the responses received are set out in Table 2.1.