Vocational courses get poor response in Himachal

Dharamshala, Aug 21 (UNI ) Ninety per cent of the seats in 16 trade courses of State Council for Vocational Training (SCVT), launched by Himachal Pradesh Government two years back, remained vacant after first phase of counselling was over, said Joint Director Technical Education A K Ahuja.

Certificate courses in 16 trades were launched by the government under SCVT in year 2005 and 112 centers run by private managements were granted permission to carry out these courses.

This year 21000 seats in these 273 centers were available for the students but unexpectedly for the authorities, the admission seekers did not turn up.

Deputy Director Technical Education (Trainings) C P Bakshi told UNI that out of 21000 seats in all the three zones of the state, 2112 seats were filled, which is ten per cent of the total seats available.

Because of the poor response, applications for these courses have again been called and the last date has been fixed as August 26, he said, adding that second phase of the counselling would be held on August 27 and 28.

He said out of 5712 seats in 106 SCVT centers available in Kangra Zone, comprising of Kangra, Chamba, Hamirpur and Una districts, for which the counselling was held here, only 448 seats were filled, which was less than even eight per cent of the total seats.

About 500 seats were filled in Mandi Zone and more than 1100 in Solan Zone, while ninety per cent seats have remained vacant in 273 centers.

He said some training centres did not register even a single admission. The Ayurvedic Pharmacist course this year has received no response, while the seats were filled in Art and Craft and PTI courses.

UNI