Technical & Vocational Education and Training in India: Lacking Vision, Strategy and Coherence

Santosh Mehrotra

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Abstract
This paper briefly examines the performance of each of the five pillars of India’s TVET ecosystem. It also discusses the poor design and implementation of a national vocational qualification framework. It goes to discuss the latest development in the field of education: the National Education Policy 2020 and its view on TVET, and finds it seriously wanting. The paper argues that if India does not want its tertiary education system to be overwhelmed by the massification of school education that occurred since early noughties, it must divert increasing numbers of secondary graduates to vocational education and training. Together with a rising number of jobs in the non-agricultural sector, to which India’s youth aspire to, strengthening vocational eduacation offers the prospect of India potentially realizing its demographic dividend, in the same way that many East Asian countries. If India’s TVET system continues to lack vision, strategy and coherence to underpin the country’s aspiration to become a high human development country, we risk frittering away our dividend.

Keywords: India, technical education, vocational education, jobs

Suggested citation:
Mehrotra Santosh. 2021. “Technical & Vocational Education and Training in India: Lacking Vision, Strategy and Coherence” Centre for Sustainable Employment Working Paper #37, Azim Premji University, Bangalore.