Necessity of vocational education

Dear Editor,
We live in a society that places a high value on the profession and white-collar jobs. It’s no surprise that parents want their children to pursue careers that would maintain or increase their status symbol.
A few years ago, vocational courses were thought to be only for people who did not have the aptitude to study in a school or college and thus, needed skills in a particular field, to gain employment.
Today, everyone want his children to be a Doctor, IAS or in government sector with high rank. But this is not fair. Children should be given the opportunity to be trained in whatever skills they want. We need to consider their choice.
The need of the hour is that we should realise the importance of vocational education and opt for such courses, both online and offline, to gain skills related to a particular field so that job prospects can improve.
Career of one’s own choice is a major benefit of this type of education system. Majority of people are caught in the wrong jobs because they opted it for the sake of security, money, social status or lack of alternative, whereas an individual with vocational training is already pursuing his/her dream job and has ample of choices.
Vocational education gives students opportunities to take marketable skills from the classroom directly into the working world. Vocational education imparts ‘specialised knowledge, ‘which is the need of the hour’.
Young learners are encouraged to choose their field of interests and further pursue training in the same. Vocational programmes train students for many high-demand (high-wage) jobs besides developing practical skill sets. Because of the focus on hands-on learning and apprenticeship- often engage students at a higher level than traditional classroom learning.
In this competitive world, we need to train our children in such a way that they can handle any situation and can compete with others.
Prof Sugandha Jamwal,
Jammu.