What is Vocational training and its importance? This refers to any training that equips you with the skills you need to do a particular job. It can be described as any skill training where the basic scientific knowledge behind the said skills are ignored or not emphasized.
The beauty of vocational training is that it is practical oriented whereby you get to use your mind and hands to design and produce a particular object or product.
One benefit of vocational training for anyone who acquires the skills is the ability to become a creative individual which ultimately makes such a person outstanding. I have seen some mind-blowing designs of cakes, furniture, fashion, etc. I have also seen people using Ankara and Jeans materials to make shoes and bags. These are evidence of a creative mind. I never thought clothing materials could be used for such products until I saw them. Vocational training help people generate ideas to invent new designs and products. So, if you are looking for an endeavor that can help you become innovative, I recommend you consider vocational training.
People acquire vocational skills for different reasons…but one of such reasons is to make money. I have a friend who runs a vocational training school for people and charges them for a fee. There are also people who collect contracts to bake wedding and birthday cakes, make some pairs of shoes, sew school uniforms, cut or plait fellow students’ hair on campuses, and so on. All these will no doubt generate income for the person and such money could further be used to support oneself in a tertiary institution, help your parents and other siblings or even serve as a source of funding one’s business in the future if you decide to build a career from such skills.
Vocational training is educational training that provides hands-on or practical experience in a particular occupational field such as ICT, Agriculture, and Home Economics. The process of acquiring vocational training include:
- Vocational Education: This is the process of acquiring knowledge, skills, aptitudes, and attitudes necessary for effective prepare individuals or skilled personnel for one or a group of occupations, trader or jobs. In some countries, vocational education is usually offered as the senior secondary schools or technical colleges and includes general education, practical skills and recounted theories required by the chosen occupation .
- Technical Education: This is the form of education which is offered at the upper secondary level, lower tertiary institutions to prepare middle level (technical and middle manager, etc), and as the university and the levels to prepare, engineers, businessmen, managers and technologists for higher management. Technical education includes general education, technical studies and related skills training .
- Vocational and Technical Education: Vocational education or technical and vocational education is a term used comprehensively to refer to the educational process to which involves, in addition to general education, the study of technologies and related sciences, skills and knowledge relating to occupations in various sectors of economic and social life.
Usefulness and Importance Vocational Training
Vocational training is one of the most viable solutions to the industrial, technological, economic, societal and national problems of any nation. The following are the usefulness and importance vocational training:
- Individuals benefits;
- The society benefits;
- Technology and the economy benefits;
- The nation benefits
1. Individuals Benefits
Vocational training is important to individuals in the following ways:
- It increases the number of options e. choices of available occupational areas from which individuals can choose.
- It boosts the earning power of individuals by ensuring that everybody profits from one form of training or instructions or other depending on the individuals‟ abilities and aptitudes
- It empowers individuals economically if they possess saleable and relevant skills to enable them gain and maintain gainful employment or become self-reliant
- It acts as a vehicle towards self-actualization
- It makes individuals to be psychologically balanced and physically fit because work gives a sense of identity, purpose and value
- It reduces idleness and tendency to crimes and other deviant behaviours
- It helps individuals maximize their potentials, talents and aptitudes thereby inducing in them a sense of achievement and worth
- It makes individuals conscious of the technical and economic implications of their activities or in activities
- It enables people make sensible economic decisions and contributes as producers and consumers
- It leads to improved standard of living, which results in healthier and longer lives
- It grooms an individual with job specific skills which enables him/her to discover a new product or services of the customers.
2. The Society Benefits
The importance of vocational training to the society includes the following:
- It leads to practical solutions to various challenges and problems in the society owing to technological breakthroughs and advancement;
- The society avoids being a victim of those who should help in building This means that crime, deviant behaviour and various societal ills become drastically reduced;
- It helps the society to become truly free and democratic;
- It helps in building a just and egalitarian society;
- Education, which is a key social service, stands to enjoy more patronage and confidence from the people. This is because vocational education gives meaning and value to general education;
3. Technological and the Economic Empowerment of a Nation
Vocational training is of great relevance to the technological and economic status of a nation. Its importance in this direction includes:
- Technological breakthroughs and advancement which naturally lead to economic emancipation and independence;
- Appropriate development and proper positioning of the technological and economic power of a nation through appropriate human resource development;
- Effective mobility of labour through training and re-training;
- Boosts in economic activities and services;
- Effective handling the issue of transfer of technology and its attendant problems;
- Reduction of over-dependence on imported products;
- Conservation of the resources that could have been spent in engaging the services of foreign experts;
- Creation of a technological identity for the nation.
4. The Nation Benefits
Vocational training plays a vital role in the survival and development of any nation especially, the developing ones such as Nigeria. This point can never be over-emphasized. The importance of Vocational Education to the nation includes:
- Increase in the productive power of the nation;
- It meets the manpower needs of the nation;
- Propelling of the nation towards all-round independence, stability and elf-reliance. This implies a situation whereby a nation is able to provide for and face her various needs and challenges with little or no assistance from other nations. This is the case with the developed nations of the world such as Britain, America and Japan;
- Conservation and development of the vast natural resources with which the country has been blessed;
- Correction of the discrepancy that often exists between the number of graduates and the number of existing job opportunities in the nation;
- Attraction of more people into the labour market through increase in the occupational/study options available the citizens.
