“Vocational is for the Weak” It Is Time for Us to Break This Social Myth

We always have a close look at our rural economy. We see a harsh reality. Meanwhile, thousands of educated youth standing at one side are jobless. They are home with their university degrees but not doing anything. Our expanding industries on the other hand have a massive shortage of skilled labourers. Factories require operators, technicians and mechanics. Yet, they are unable to find competent hands.

It is such a challenge for a poor rural family to educate a child. Parents sell their land. They take high-interest loans. They do all this in order to be able to send their kids to colleges. Getting back to that facility, they hope for a better tomorrow. However, it is very difficult to study for 15 or 16 years just for a piece of paper. At times it feels like economic oneself to commit suicide. It would be time to abandon our emotional focus regarding the classical degrees. We must face the truth. We strongly endorse the fact that vocational/ technical education is the most pragmatic escape route for our poor rural youth.

The Trap of “Educated Unemployment”

Now, let us consider the cost of the opportunity. It is a simple economic notion. Daily, a poor family has to earn money just to feed themselves. They steal their most productive time when their child studies the general subjects for years. From sixteen to twenty-five they read books. They do not earn anything. It is during this time that the family takes a huge toll.

Our rural youths pass through a difficult job oriented road after passing the examinations. A single desk job role attracts thousands of competitors. Yes, but they are not actually useful. They only know academic theories. You can not get a fair corporate or government job. On the other hand, they blush and feel ashamed to work in fields. I have a college graduate who is embarrassed to work on a farm. They have no way to go back into farming. They are NOT able to progress in the corporate world. They are stuck in the middle.

Our poor families are being killed by this new “educated unemployment.” It creates deep frustration. It results in depression among our youth. General education should cure poverty. It does rather become a trap for us instead. We are churning out diploma-holders, not problem-solvers.

Why Technical Education Makes Sense

We consider vocational training as the only available alternative. It is not a secondary option. It is the primary solution. It addresses the core of our issue. Here are our logical reasons:

Quick Income: Vocational courses provide fast monetary returns. These courses are short. The last six months to three years. A student registers for one skill. They can begin to earn at a very young age. A nineteen year old artisan can feed his parents. This income early makes it an entire family.

True Market Demand: companies are truly in need of these practical skills. Data History or Philosophy Graduate: Now Here is Not Always Our Market. However, our society also needs good, sparky, trusty plumbers or any IT expert. If they have a broken fridge, or bike, or computer, people are always going to pay good money to get it repaired. Vocational education fulfills this genuine, everyday market need.

Get a chance to take charge of your own work: You get the opportunity for an entrepreneurial venture. We do not need to beg our youth for a job. They have to wait for calls regarding the interview? No, they don’t! An adolescent can open a small shop. They can also have a tech service center in their village market. With minimal capital, they can start a business. They can even hire others. This generates a circuit of wealth in our villages.

The Mental Block And Shattered Systems

If it is free of vocational training then why do all people do so. We see two main barriers. We must address them honestly.

The first is the bad culture of the society. Vocational training has the wrong reputation in our society as a field only for “weak” students. This made the parents proud thereafter because they can say well my child is studying for their masters level degree. They are ashamed to say their child is learning to be a mechanic. Teachers directed the initial technical school only to the students who struggled. This is a huge mental block in our society. We do not honor the depth of labor.

This means, second, that we have to go back to our local technical institutes. Our system is largely broken. Visit any vocational school in rural America. You will see backdated machines. There will be a dearth of practical examiners. We offer an over burdened curriculum where the focus is more on books. We train mechanics on a black-board. This is ridiculous. Reading theory does not create skilled workers. The tools must be touched by a student. They have to get their hands dirty. Currently, we do not have the right infrastructure to support this.

Awareness alone is not enough. Words mean nothing unless they are believed by on-site conditions. Clear proposals to fix this system

Updating the Courses: We need to demonstrate so that we turn towards our future. We have some traditional skills that work but we need some modern skills. Let us train our rural youth to repair solar panels. Let us train the youth in fixing modern agricultural machines. Training them in basic robotics, advanced mobile servicing, graphic design. We need to teach them freelancing. These are 21st century skills.

Connect Schools to Jobs: Our technical schools Cannot Exist In A Vacuum. They have to collaborate with local industries, garages and factories. Students must work as apprentices in real factories or workshops. Hands-on experience is a must. They need to learn directly from mechanics, not just classroom teachers.

Money for Businessmen: Youngsters: should not be made to sit idle due to a lack of money. Both the government and NGOs need to act now. It is necessary for them to provide a simple, unsecured loan. Having a “startup fund” or a free “toolkit” post-graduation is really key. If you provide a mechanic with a box of tools, they will make a career out of it.

Change the Mindset: Paper vs Skills Technical skills also need to be honored and valued by our media, leaders and state as well. A good farmer or a mechanic should be celebrated just like a civil servant. We need a national campaign. We require a new national mindset: ” Certificates last, but skills do matter.

Fighting our poverty should be a matter of practicality not an emotionally charged topic. We can no longer afford dead degrees. We see handing a bad jobless certificate to a poor youth as our collective failure. It is doing a disservice to their potential. It is our real job to make them professionals.

Vocational training is not inferior. It is not for the failures. It is our sharpest weapon for survival and progress in our economy. Training our rural youth and making them skilled will make sure that families are rescued from poverty. Our villages will prosper. Even our national economy will begin to speed up.

It is time for us to wake up. We have to shatter the illusion of certificate-based education now. Let us embrace practical skills. Let us embrace technical education as our master key to development. Our hands, not our paper degrees, will be what determines our future.

Md Shihab Uddin

Volunteer, UNICEF Bangladesh

The author is an independent researcher and a student of Folklore and Social Development Studies at the University of Rajshahi.He may be contacted at shihab.fsds@gmail.com