The Department of Education (DoE) has selected 100 community schools across the country to impart vocational education to students of grade 9 and 10.

The DoE had formed a committee last year to look into the possibility of introducing agriculture, engineering, hotel management, computer training and livestock classes at school level.

DoE director Tek Narayan Pandey said the special committee in coordination with the district education offices undertook a study to see if these schools could run vocational subjects.

Similarly, the subject selection was done after studying the scope of employment in those localities.

“The textbooks were ready and few schools have already started classes. Others would do so soon,” said Pandey. Some of the schools have already built infrastructures for running the vocational subjects. The government would allocate the required funds to the schools through the District Education Offices. The government had allocated Rs 75 million this year to run technical education at schools.

Last year, the DoE had coordinated with the experts at the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) to implement the plan. The concept of vocational education was formulated under the school sector reform program after the government decided to incorporate the plus two grades into secondary level education.

The office had earlier asked community and private schools to express their interest in launching the technical classes at school level. Though a total of 30 community schools were selected to teach different subjects, including agriculture, engineering, hotel management and computer, from this academic session, the schools showed interest in opening technical classes, said Pandey.

The government had formed a committee led by the former member of the National Planning Commission, Shiva Kumar Rai to prepare directives, curriculum, among others.

The vice chancellors of all universities, joint secretary of the Ministry of Education, Director General of the DoE are the members of the committee. Similarly, the vice chairmen of Higher Secondary Education Board, director of Curriculum Development Centre and the executive director of Educational Human Resource Development Centre have played vital roles to give shape to government´s program.

source: republica, 1 may 2013