Change in Education trends after school

College admissions are mostly over in Delhi University. But surprise, surprise, despite the sustained hard core media coverage on it for weeks, colleges now find that many of their intially "full-up" courses are registering withdrawals as students have chosen to opt out of regular graduation programmes and enroll themselves at privately run professional and vocational colleges to pursue job- friendly courses. Booking seats at the university colleges now appears to have been more of a fall back option than the preferred choice.

This I think is a wake-up call to universities and institutions, who because they are government -funded and therefore not competitive, havenot thought it fit to keep pace with the changing times and attitudes. As a result they find themselves getting more and more marginalised when it comes to catering to the need of the end- consumer, be it the employer or industry or the student.

Except for the leading colleges which command a preference, more because of their illustrious track record by way of their alumni having done well, many of the second and third rung colleges find themselves advertising their vacant seats to probables still looking to get a graduation degree.And in many cases these will be students who have enrolled for courses elsewhere also that impart employable skills.

This is not surprising.When private players entered the market place, they were seen as the second rate choice for want of an awareness about acquiring skills in place of useless graduation degrees that left most without any employable capabilities.But over the years with the growing numbers of unemployed graduates, plain common sense seems to have taken precedence over established patterns.

One can can now actually see the average student planning for his future career right from the higher secondary years. This exercise was earlier the preserve of only the "bright" students who were training to crack entrance exams to various medical and engineering colleges while still in school. The vast majority had no other option, but to wait for the plus two exams's results and then go around applying for admissions to courses that were neither of interest or of value to them. After three years in the university system, studying courses that were rarely reviewd and updated, they would invariably be back to their earlier plight of searching for a viable route to employment.

It is heartening to see a shift in this paradigm as students now donot want to defer that choice by a three year long graduation degree. They are now more savvy regards their future plans and want to get into streams that lead to employable skills straight away.

The parity of esteem that vocational education has now begun to enjoy, augers well for the country. With a stupendous skills shortage and talent crunch, it is indeed a time to cheer as more and more students eschew an open-ended education that leads nowhere to skilling themselves to join the workforce in careers of their choice.

Academics should be the preserve of only the scholastic minded. As a country, we cannot have the mass of students pursue academics without a roadmap.This was the case because there were no viable options. Structured learning and established bench-marks were not widely known. That is no longer the case. Even in subjects like Hairdressing and Media streams, courses with clear learning objectives and agreed learing outcomes have become the norms.Equal emphasis is put on practical competences and underpinning knowlegde. As a result such professions are also seeing a resurgence and respect from society in general. These are no longer esoteric, vague or unprofessional pursuits anymore.

In times to come, I am sure a well- qualified and successful medical practioner will find himself getting a run for his money from an equally well- qualified and successful beauty therapist in terms of income and esteem!

Happiness Index

The City and Guilds' happiness index for 2008 has just been released in June. It surveys 1,000 UK employees across a range of professions to guage how satisfied they are at work. Employers were also surveyed to see if there was a difference in opinion. Employers have been urged to focus on training and introduce flexi- timing to increase job satisfaction. Almost five million Brits admitted to a touch of ergophobia (fear of work) , with some of the nation’s top earners, lawyers and bankers, dreading the morning alarm clock the most.

Leading organisational psychologist Cary Cooper has analysed the findings from the City & Guilds Happiness Index to help employers understand what makes people happy in the workplace. The top 3 reasons for being happy at work are:
1. An interest in what you do for a living
2. Good relationships with colleagues
3. Having a work-life balance
Beauty therapists and hairdressers are at the top spot in the 2008 Happiness Index, with one in three registering a happiness level of 10 out of 10. At the other end of the scale, builders and bankers were the least happy with their working lives.
What about all the other professions? Doctors, executives, chefs, managers, lawyers, florists, accountants etc? Visit www.cityandguilds.co./happiness for the details.

Makes interesting reading! Wonder how a Happiness Index for India would look like! Would there be a substantial difference? These days when thousands of students are getting ready to enter college life , a look at such an index could also help them choose their future careers!