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Vocational Education and Training At present, Vocational Education is provided only at the +2 stage and, even here, it is restricted to a distinct stream that is parallel to the academic stream. In contrast to the NPE 1986 goal of covering 25 per cent of the +2 enrolment in the vocational stream by the year 2000, less than 5 per cent of students choose this option at present. The programme has been debilitated by a range of conceptual, managerial and resource constraints for more than 25 years. Apart from being viewed as an inferior stream, it suffers from poor infrastructure, obsolete equipment, untrained or underqualified teachers (often on a part-time basis), outdated and inflexible courses, lac k of vertical or later al mobility, absence of linkage with the ‘world of work’, lack of a credible evaluation, accreditation and apprenticeship system, and, finally, low employability (Report of the Working Group for the Revision of the Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Vocationalisation of Sec...

In-Service Education and Training of Teachers In-service education can play a significant role in the professional growth of teachers and function as an agent for change in school-related practices. It helps teachers gain confidence by engaging with their practices and reaffirming their experiences. It provides opportunities to engage with other teachers professionally and to update knowledge. The Education Commission (1964–66) recommended that in-service education for teachers should be organised by universities and teacher organisations to enable every teacher to receive two or three months of in-service education once in five years; that such programmes should be based on research inputs; that training institutions should work on a 12-month basis and organise programmes like refresher courses, seminars, workshops and summer institutes. The Report of the National Commission on Teachers (1983–85) mooted the idea of Teachers' Centres that could serve as meeting places, where talent...

Libraries School libraries have been a subject of policy recommendations for a long time, but a functioning library in the school continues to be a rarity. It is important that future planning treats the library as an essential component of the school at all levels. Both teachers and children need to be motivated and trained to use the library as a resource for learning, pleasure, and concentration. The school library should be conceptualised as an intellectual space where teachers, children and members of the community can expect to find the means to deepen their knowledge and imagination. A system of cataloguing books and other materials available in the library needs to be developed so that children can become self-reliant library users. Apart from books and magazines, a school library should provide access to the new information technology to enable children and teachers to connect with the wider world. In the initial stages of planning, block-level or cluster-level libraries can b...