Students pursuing Arts in pre-university course from the next academic year may have a new syllabus. As part of the National Vocational Education Qualification Framework (NVEQF), nearly three lakh Arts students in first and second PU are likely to be imparted vocational training in one of the four sectors — automobile, information technology, retail and private security — as an add-on course.
Vishnukanth Chatpalli, Chairman, NVEQF, Karnataka, said the proposal to introduce vocational training in PUC was yet to be approved by the Project Approval Board.
Once the project is approved, “It will be implemented in 250 government colleges across the State on a pilot basis at no cost to the candidates,” he said. The course, he said, aimed at providing “vertical and horizontal mobility to students”, and was an integrated experiment as opposed to the earlier “compartmental approach”.
Rashmi V., Commissioner of the Department of Pre-University Education, confirmed the that vocational training is likely for PUC Arts students from next academic year. “Science already has the national curriculum in place and Commerce will also have it in the next academic year. The working and teaching hours have increased due to this. As there is no national syllabus for PUC in Arts stream, this proposal will be implemented next year,” she said.
Ms. Rashmi said the NVEQF would help make the Arts course more practical and enhance its students’ utilitarian value in the job market.
Original proposal
Sharing details with The Hindu, Basab Banerjee, Head, Standards and QA, National Skills Development Council, New Delhi, said the original proposal was to make vocational training a separate stream. “We proposed vocational training as a separate stream in addition to Arts, Science and Commerce,” he said.
The idea was to let students choose from the four most important sectors, he added.
