lower secondary stage will also facilitate the choice of vocational courses
at the higher secondary stage.
Recently, the National Curriculum Framework for School Education
developed by the NCERT (2000a) suggested a more comprehensive
term “Work Education” in place of the earlier nomenclature of Work
Experience.
Concept of Work Education
The National Policy on Education 1986 has conceived Work Education as
purposive and meaningful manual work that results in goods or services
which are useful to the society. Work Education comprises activities
consisting of services, foods and community development in various
areas of human needs such as health and hygiene, food, clothing,
recreation and social service in accordance with mental abilities and
manual skills of children at various stages of education and the
availability of local resources.
The Policy visualized intensive
participation in production and service-oriented projects for the middle
and lower-secondary stages along with an “Earn while you learn”
dimension for needy students on an optional basis. It assigned equal
importance to community work/social service for creating social
awareness and concern for the welfare/development of the local
community or society at large.
The essential attribute of Work Education is, therefore, its manual
character which means that the children are to work with their hands and
thereby develop a purposive or educative in that it should help develop
knowledge, understanding attitudes, personal-social qualities and skills
related to the world of work.
Further, Work Education should be
meaningful i.e., it should help in the satisfaction of children’s basic needs
of life such as food, clothing, shelter, health, hygiene and recreation,
through production of goods or rendering of services.
Social or
community service for the welfare/development of the community or
society at large should also form an essential component of Work
Education.
Work Education in the National Policy on Education (NPE)
Work Education in the NPE is thus conceptually the same as SUPW.
However, its emphasis is on well-structured and graded programmes at
all stages of school education including programme at the middle school
stage which would develop sufficient psychomotor skills and confidence
among students for entering the world of work directly or through certain
occupational courses. It also envisages pre-vocational programmes at
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