Technical Education Andhra Pradesh

Vocation Ed For Girls

"Vocational and technical education is the key to self-reliance and promotion of self-esteem among the girls and women" said the director of technical education Andhra Pradesh Board.

In the Indian context vocational education for girls began in the late 19th century. The courses normally opted by girls was teacher training, mid-wifery and medicine. Few girls in Bengal and Bombay Presidencies and who belong to urban areas had an access to it. It was completely absent in rural areas. However, after independence there has been a conscious effort on the part of policy planners to promote vocational and technical education among girls. And this has found reflection in the National Policy on Education 1996. The policy clearly lays down that the National Education System will pay a positive interventionist role in the empowerment of women. It will foster the development of new values through redesigned curricula, textbooks, training and orientation of teachers, decision makers, and administrators with the active involvement of educational institutions.

In order to operationalize the recommendations of the NPE (1996) the Program of Action (POA) 2006 in one of its parameters mentions that girls & women should be provided with ".... information knowledge and skills for economic independence". Keeping the above in mind, efforts are constantly made by the government to encourage girls to learn new emerging skills and technologies and programs with emphasis on entrepreneurial skills for employment in micro-enterprises are made available to them.

The National Vocational Training Institute for Women and four Regional Vocational Training Institutes for women exclusively has a total capacity of 1496 students. These institutes provide advanced skill in selected trades with high employment potentials. There are 4,192 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) with a total enrolment of 411 thousand, out of which 14.1 per cent are girls of these ITIs, 214 are meant exclusively for women and 231 have women's wings. In principle, all is open to women. In 1,110 Polytechnics girls form only 17.2 per cent of the enrolment.

Further a significant development in post-independent India is the increase of women's participation in non-traditional courses. Educational indicators show that there has been an increase from a little over 6,000 in 1950-51 to 1.46 lakhs in 2006-07, which is an increase of 23 times in non-traditional streams. There has been a noticeable growth in number of women students in Engineering and Technology streams in the Indian Institute of Technology and Polytechnics, as against 40 women students in 1950-51 (0.3%) the number rose to 16.67 thousand in 1995-96 (7.7%) and 78.3 thousand in 2006-07 (13.1%). The same trend is observed in other professional courses such as law, medicine and management.

Regarding institutions promoting higher and professional education, there are 196 university level institutions serving 43 million students out of whom 1.67 million are girls, their number having gone up by more than four times since independence. There are 22 women study centers in the universities and 11 cells in Women's College.

Special initiatives have also been taken up by the technical education Andhra Pradesh board in creating part time Research Associateships for Women in science and humanities including social sciences, engineering and technology.