Skill Development in Higher Education: A Study with Reference to B.Voc. Degree Programmes in Maharashtra

University Grants Commission in its guidelines provided to universities and colleges upon the introduction of B.Voc. Programme says that the graduates from Indian Higher Education System must be equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills for the economic growth in present times. Further it expresses the need that the requirements of the industries need to be considered while framing the curricula in higher education in the most innovative and flexible manner in order to create the well trained and holistic graduates. From this we can infer that as the graduates step out from our universities and colleges, they should be well trained and qualified in terms of both knowledge and skills to meet the industry needs. This is in accordance with the rapidly advancing technology used in the production of goods as well as services to the public offered by the industries. The present system of higher education may not be able to produce desired outcome unless revolutionised by all means. If this has to be reflected in the curricula, research and comprehensive studies need to be done in order to gauge the industry needs, workforce required by them, knowledge and skills needed for existing jobs, resources required for such training and instruction. Govt of India had issued a notification for National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF). For the further development the sector skill councils established under Nation Skill Development Corporation have to develop Qualification Packs (QPs) and National Occupational Standards (NOS) required for the available job roles in various industry sectors like electronics, technology, banking and finance, health, beauty and wellness, retailing etc. The underlying objective was to incorporate the well formulated competencies required for the specific job roles in curricula of higher education for creating employable graduates. This may lead us to think that the curricula of the existing conventional degree programmes like Bachelor of Arts or Commerce may be subjected to high level of transformation to meet the objectives. However, no such steps were taken to modify the existing undergraduate programmes. Rather a new initiative in the form of Bachelor of Vocation (B.Voc.) degree was taken by UGC in 2014. This new programme was launched by UGC as a part of Skill Development in Higher Education in colleges and universities and the institutions recognised by UGC under 2(f) and 12(B) of UGC Act, 1956 were eligible to adopt the new programme as per UGC guidelines.