With one in four adults in the developing world illiterate, vocational schools offer an economic development solution to provide skill-based training to people instead of wading them through the long process of a formal education.

Vocational training has an immediate effect for the person – he or she acquires skills, which vastly improve their chances for employment or to create self-employment. Vocational schools commonly offer skill training in areas like agriculture, business, baking, construction, hotel and tourism, jewelry making, tailoring and motor mechanics.

But if a community is already saturated with tailors, for example, training hundreds more is not going to increase the demand for the skill. So being sensitive to what a community can absorb is important when designing vocational schools. But income-generating skill training is quickly becoming a popular development model, even though there is a stigma within some communities of perceived inferiority of vocational schools in comparison to academic schools.

This stigma needs to be thought through and evaluated, and the success of vocational schools is yet to be seen on a wide scale. Until then, keep ideating on creative ways to develop skill sets in people so they are empowered to provide for themselves.

• 04/12/2007 11:40
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