More specifically, Work Education provides the basis for building up
proper attitudes towards work developing favourable work values and
habits, imparting necessary knowledge related to work, and developing
appropriate work skills, which can help the children to become productive
and self-reliant in meeting their day-to-day needs and those of their
families and communities.
Work Education can further enable the
children to discover their real interests and aptitudes which would be
helpful to them in selecting suitable courses of study and occupations
later on. Since work occupies a prominent position in the life and well-
being of an individual and a country, Work Education should have a pride
of place in the school curriculum as a means of achieving self-reliance
and as a preparation for adult life.
In view of the unique importance of work education for the all round
development of the child and well-being of the country, considerable
importance has been given to it in almost all important schemes, reports
and documents on education which have come out in the last fifty years
e.g. Gandhiji’s Scheme of Basic Education, Kothari Commission’s Report,
NCERT’s Ten-Year School Curriculum, Report of the Ishwar Bhai Patel
Committee, the National Policy of Education, 1986 and more recently the
National Curriculum Framework 2000. Consequently, work education has
come to be viewed as an important link between education and
productivity, as an important instrument for the preparation of the child as
a self-supporting and productive citizen and as a potent means of social
reconstruction and national development. It has been introduced and
implemented under different names, such as Craft Education (1937),
Work Experience (1967), Socially Useful Productive Work (1977), at
different times and in different parts of the country.
The National Policy on Education (NPE) has assigned a very
important place to work education in the school curriculum at all stages.
It has reverted to the term “Work Experience” which was earlier used by
Kothari Commission for work education.
The NPE states: “Work
Experience, viewed as purposive, meaningful, manual work, organized as
an integral part of the learning process and resulting in either goods or
services useful to the community, is considered as an essential
component (of curriculum) at all stages. It is to be provided through well -
structured and graded programmes. Work Experience would comprise
activities in accordance with the interests, abilities and needs of
students, the level of skills and knowledge to be upgraded with the
stages of education. This experience would be helpful to a student on his
entry into the work force. Pre-vocational programmes provided at the
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