UP Board moots three new vocational subjects for students

UP Board, one of the world’s largest examination bodies with over 27,000 schools affiliated to it across the state, is gearing up to offer students optional vocational subjects like plumbing, electrical works and solar powered gadget repairing, besides disaster management among others, Board officials said.

Students studying in schools affiliated to Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad (UPMSP), or UP Board, as it is commonly known, will soon have a wider choice of optional vocational subjects.

Students studying in schools affiliated to Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad (UPMSP), or UP Board, as it is commonly known, will soon have a wider choice of optional vocational subjects. (Sushil Kumar/HT Photo (Representative image))

UP Board, one of the world’s largest examination bodies with over 27,000 schools affiliated to it across the state, is gearing up to offer students optional vocational subjects like plumbing, electrical works and solar powered gadget repairing, besides disaster management among others, Board officials said.

If everything goes to plan, the new vocational subjects will become available to students from the next academic session (2020-21).

“The move follows instructions from the state government to the Board asking it to widen the range of optional vocational subjects being offered at the high school level. The aim is to make students skilled in repairing gadgets and deal with situations in day-to-day life, and which contribute to their becoming employable,” said an official of the state education department not wishing to be named.

He said that a decision to widen the choice of vocational subjects was taken at a review meeting of the secondary education department held in Lucknow which was chaired by chief minister Yogi Adityanath on June 17.

The Board has already begun the exercise of deciding the syllabus of these new vocational subjects and the hands-on training to go along.

Subjects already available at HS level

At the high school level, the vocational subjects already available to students include library science, cookery, photography, baking and confectionary, bee-keeping, plant nursery, automobile, laundry and dyeing, dress making and decoration, food preservation, account and audit, short hand and typing, banking, typing, fruit preservation technology, crop protection technology, printing, radio and television technology, weaving technology, retail trading, security, mobile repairing, tourism and hospitality besides IT/ITES.

Subjects already available at Intermediate level

The Board also offers a wide range of vocational subjects to students at the intermediate level that includes fruit preservation, cookery, dress making and decoration, laundry and drying, baking and confectionery, textile design, weaving technology, nursery teachers training and & child care, library science, multipurpose health worker with lab technique, colour photography, radio and colour television technology, automobile, bee keeping, dairy technology, sericulture, seed production technology, crop protection technology, plant nursery, soil conservation, accountancy and auditing, banking, shorthand and typewriting Hindi and English, marketing and salesmanship, secretarial practice, insurance, cooperative, typing Hindi and English, printing, ceramics, artificial limb and organ technique, embroidery, hand block printing and vegetable dyeing, metal craft moulding in ferrous metals, meta craft engraving and enamelling, computer technique and maintenance, domestic electric appliances and repairing, retail trade, security, mobile repairing besides tourism.