Deepak Byotra
There is increasingly awareness of the importance of technical and vocational education in human resource development and socio-economic development of the society. The technical education has seen a sea change in the recent past that is due to the fact that mind set of the people is changing and changing very fast. You cannot find any single industry working without mechanical engineers. Mechanical engineering deals with the design, development, installation, operation and maintenance of anything that has moving parts. Because of this, you will find relevant opportunities in a range of sectors, including manufacturing, construction, aerospace, automotive, energy, railway, sport and medicine. Generally speaking, as a mechanical engineer, you will also have plenty of opportunities to work not only in the core industry but also in the allied sectors.Air-conditioning system, gas and steam turbines, air and space vehicles, trains, ships, machine tools, automobiles, material handling systems, elevators, and robots used in industry are a few of the systems requiring mechanical engineering knowledge.The basic function of the mechanical engineering to bring the ideas and design into reality by proper selection of material, machines and manufacturing processes. To meet the challenges imposed on the engineer it is desirable for any engineer irrespective of the disciplines to have basic knowledge which includes material science, design and manufacturing processes. Engineering provides the right platform to implement the ideas and assess the job of an engineer both technically and economically. Since computers and automatic controls are finding more and more usage in day to day life the technology has also been switched over to numerically controlled systems like CNC lathe, CNC milling and other non-conventional machining to meet high degree of accuracy and that too in a shortest space of time. Advanced manufacturing technologies are changing the face of manufacturing and these transformations are made possible only through innovations in manufacturing. Needless to say, mechanical engineer has to be fully aware of the selection of material, tools and machines which are available at the disposal of an engineer and understand all these principles to make best use of them.
People learn in response to need. It’s important not to force-feed learning but to encourage it by making available learning resources. In a traditional classroom, it is difficult for a teacher to provide opportunities to their students to teach and learn from each other. The institutions and policy makers need to address the technical education deficits by revisiting the traditional model of pre-secondary, senior secondary and higher education keeping in view the needs of today’s world.In some of the countries the vocational education belongs to secondary education. To meet with constant technological change, measures need to be taken to widen the scope of technical and vocational education. The govt and private sectors should think of increasing employment opportunities by providing a better information system on current labour market needs. By providing knowledge-based technological services, the needs of society and the industry can be fulfilled which helps in building national capabilities in science, technology, humanities, management, education and research. It will create and sustain a community of learning in which students acquire knowledge and learn to apply it professionally with due consideration for ethical, ecological, and economic issues.
Vocational education is related to the age-old apprenticeship system of learning and is designed for many levels of work from manual trades to high knowledge work.
The vocational training may be provided in trades such as Machining ,Carpentry, Electrician, Fitting, Plumber, Auto-technician, Foundry, Welding, Painting, Multipurpose technicians etc. which takes not much of time to become skilled. We need millions of trained people in the area of services for agriculture, floriculture, horticulture, sericulture, fisheries, healthcare, tourism and hundreds of skills for the manufacturing sector. We do not have world class vocational training infrastructure, so that we can impart the training to high level and compete with the developed nations. There are marine mechanics programs, where students learn how to repair inboard and outboard motors, boat building, automotive repair, plastics, graphics and computerized drafting. Govt and govt aided technical institutions should work on providing job -oriented courses to help reduce the level of educated unemployment. Evening classes can be started in ITI’s and other technical institutions to give the opportunity to those youth who cannot afford to take their courses in the regular working hours. The Institution takes the initiative and makes the specified target to give optimum technical education to the underprivileged section of the society. The technical institutions such as ITI, polytechnic etc need to be strengthening as institute of lifelong learning allowing the people from all ages to achieve their goal in the professional education. The ministry of HRD, govt and private sector need to work closely to frame the new strategy with the adoption of new technical skill and modernization of the existing equipment to produce world class skilled people for our country and to make the India more competitive.
(The author is Superintendent of Central Workshop at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University Katra)
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel