Re-Examining Vocational Education in Indian Education System on Reproducing Status quo among the Marginalized

This paper examines the status of vocational education and training (VET) in India, amid the Indian government’s focus on vocational education in schools to increase their employability. The authors discuss the challenges associated with the VET through socioeconomic implications especially for the marginalized population. The paper highlights the gaps between the aims of VET and Sustainable Development Goals 4 to access equitable and quality education and Sustainable Development Goal-8 for achieving a decent job amid the contrasting development through reduced public funding in education including VET. The paper observes an overlapping of general and vocational education and lower employment. The paper suggests sincere engagement of public and private stakeholders to provide VET to aspirants irrespective of any discrimination. Finally, the paper recommends higher public funding to create a stronger robust VET system and to offer more inclusivity and quality education and training for all. Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Correction StatementThis article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.Notes1 The data for actual budget allocation is taken from the Budget Profile Document 2018–19 (GOI, Citation2022).Additional informationNotes on contributors VaishaliDr. Vaishali is presently working as a consultant in Department of Curriculum Studies and Development, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), Government of India, New Delhi. Her research areas include gender, education and equity issues.Narender ThakurNarender Thakur works as an Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar Colllege, University of Delhi. His research areas are Economics of Education, Migration, Globalization and Econometrics

Curriculum · Economic growth · Economics · Employability · Equity (law · Government (linguistics · Higher education · Pedagogy · Political science · Population · Public relations · Sociology · Status quo · Vocational education · Education Systems and Policy · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Labor market dynamics and wage inequality · Law · Public Administration