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Development of Education System

Notes secondary stage. The Education Commission 1964-66 also laid a great stress on vocationalisation
of education, especially at the secondary school level to meet the needs of Industry, Agriculture
and Trade. The report of the Review Committee on the Curriculum, for the Ten Years School,
popularly known as Ishwar Bhai Patel Committee (1977) recommended a compulsory introduction
of socially useful productive work. The Plus 2 Committee Report entitled ‘Learning To Do—Towards
the Learning and Working Society’’ on Higher Secondary Education with special reference to
vocationalisation, under the Chairmanship of Malcom S. Adiseshiah (1978) recommended the
introduction of socially useful productive work at the school stage and also made important
recommendations for the voctionalisation of the higher secondary education. The report pleaded
very strongly to give serious thought to the effective implementation of this very important aspect
of education, i.e., relating education to productivity.
The rate of unemployment has continued to increase with the rapid expansion of educational
facilities. The maladjustment between the supply and demand of educated persons is likely to
assume unmanageable proportions unless effective steps are from now onwards. The discontent
and frustration among our educated youth is clearly visible in their very irrational acts like tearing
degree certificates in the University convocation functions.
The Plus 2 Committee or the Adiseshiah Report (1978) outlined the philosophy of vocationalisation
as, “In a country where industrial and agricultural production is growing, where the application
of science and technology opens up diverse fields of activity, where commerce and trade and a
large variety of public services are expanding rapidly, there must be an adequate supply of
personnel for the higher administrative and professional levels, but there is a crucial middle level
of manpower trained in certain specific competencies without which neither production can be
increased nor services improve. If health services have to function and benefit the common man,
the doctor alone can achieve nothing, unless the drugs, and instruments are manufactured and
hospital facilities established to reach every nook and corner of the country. This focuses or attention
on the variety and number of technical people manning of the productive medical enterprises on
the one hand, and a host of paramedical and technical people who make it possible for a hospital
to function from those who take the X-ray or conduct pathological tests to operation theatre
technicians, physiotherapists, orthopaedic assistants, and so on. In agriculture, commerce and the
string of cultural and welfare services, this middle-level personnel is of the utmost importance for
the very existence of a modern society. Deficiencies, either in number or in training of personnel
for these vocations, lead to poor maintenance of equipment, material and services, to frustration
for the users and high infructuous costs to the country.
In India, although agriculture is and will remain for decades to be the mainstay of our economy,
we have in the past been concerned mainly with industry-cum-oriented vocations. Facilities and
services in rural areas have remained generally backward so that the city-trained doctors, engineers
and even technicians do not find it sufficiently attractive to settle and serve in the rural areas.
Special attention, therefore, has to be given to raising the facilities and quality of life in the rural
area, which implies development of particularly those vocations which have the potential of better
utilization of rural agricultural resources from the servicing of tractors, tube-wells or other
machinery to vocations such as those based on dairy/fruit/vegetable/ horticulture/medical plant/
products, or those connected with rural health/ educational/cultural services. Therefore, in a
sense, vocational education has the potential of enabling us to really move towards equitable
sharing of benefits of economic development towards social justice and socialism.”
The National Policy on Education, 1986 as modified in 1992 has pointed out the importance and
philosophy of vocationalisation in these words, “The introduction of systematic, well planned and
rigorously implemented programmes of vocational education is crucial in the proposed educational
reorganisation. These elements are meant to develop a healthy attitude amongst students towards
work and life, to enhance individual employability, to reduce the mis-match between the demand
and supply of skilled manpower, and to provide an alternative for those intending to pursue
higher education without particular interest or purpose. Efforts will be made to provide children
at the higher secondary level with generic vocational courses which cut across several occupational
fields and which are not occupation specific.”

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