“It is a matter of big pride that the government of India has given go ahead to start vocational education in 300 more new schools of the state.” Disclosing this Dr. Daljit Singh Cheema, Education Minister Punjab said that the state has excelled in education sector and this achievement of the state has caught the fancy of education policy maker of government of India and they have given it’s not to start vocational education in 300 schools. He said that vocational education would be imparted to the students from 9th standard onwards from the new academic session.
Dr. Cheema who were presiding over a high level review meeting of the department said that the state has signed a Mou with the National Skill Development Council(NSDC) under which vocational education in six different courses is already being imparted to the students in 100 schools. He said that under this scheme the certificate which is provided by the National Human Resource Ministry has equal recognition as of ITI courses. He said that now from this academic session the courses would be increased from 6 to 8.The Education Minister further said that at present students are being imparted vocational education in 6 different schemes namely Security, Beauty and Wellness, Health Care, Information and Technology, Automobile and Retail. Three new streams Agriculture, Tour & Travels and Physical Education & Sports have been included in new 300 schools. Prominent among others who were present in meeting included Chief Parliamentary Secretary Education Mr. Inderbir Singh Bolaria, Principal Secretary Mr. C. Roul, DGSE Mr. Pardeep Aggarwal, Special Secretary Mr. Gurdeep Singh, DPI (SE) Mr. Balbir Singh Dhol, DPE (EE) Ms. Darshan Kaur and Director SCERT Ms. Pankaj Sharma.