Seats in DU's skill programmes not filled after 6th list
Despite the fact that vocational courses are considered “skill India’s” backbone and have higher employability as compared to traditional courses, such programmes run by Delhi University (DU) are least popular among students and have literally failed to draw crowd.
Even as the Government and the university have been pushing hard for vocational courses, students at large still fall for the popular traditional undergraduate courses in humanities, social sciences and sciences. Even after the closure of admissions against the sixth cut-off, seats in many vocational courses, generally categorised under Bachelor of Arts (Vocational Studies), Bachelor of Vocation (BVoc) Programme and Advanced Diploma Programme, are yet left to be filled.
A DU official on the condition of anonymity said the university needs to focus more on vocational courses both in terms of modernising the facilities and also ensuring the campus placements for students pursuing these courses.
He said as compared to DU, those colleges or institutes that run only vocational courses are doing much better and have quite good footfall. Adding that the “mindset” of parents and students is also responsible to a large extent for the plight of these vocational courses. “Parents usually conceive that students taking admission in such courses end up working as a skilled labour in factories, or as electrician, motor mechanic and similar jobs that in their view requires no formal education,” he said.
Many students think such courses have limited career options in comparison to other professional courses, the DU official said.
Usually students who fail to make it to other courses take vocational courses as the last resort, the DU official said.
“Humanities and social science courses are more popular because majority of student’s eye on preparation of civil-services and hence subjects like history, geography, political science are very popular while vocational courses are look down upon,” said a third year student of Ramjas College.
Another DU official said there is no compulsion of subjects and student of any stream can opt for the vocational courses and his or her candidature would be considered after appropriate deduction in percentage.
He also said those who have studied even any related vocational subject at Class XII are considered without any deduction in percentage for the BA (Voc) studies/BVoc course.
Contrary to the other merit based undergraduate (UG) courses, in which total number of admissions exceed far above the sanctioned strength by the end of first few cut-offs only, vocational courses hardly have any takers in the initial run-up for the admissions.
BVoc programme has been designed by the University Grants Commission (UGC) as per National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) of Ministry of Skill Development emphasising on skill-based education in consultation with National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC).
The programme focuses on skill development based higher education. Its objective is to provide judicious mix of skills relating to a profession and appropriate content of general education, so that they are work- ready at each exit point of the programme. It also integrates NSQF within the undergraduate level of higher education in order to enhance employability of the graduates and meet industry requirement.
Admissions in Vocational Courses by end of sixth cut-off : However, the left over seats are expected to get filled in the admissions, against the seventh cut off list, slated to start on Monday, said a DU official.