EASSY ON TECHNICAL EDUCATION FOR CLASS 10 & 12

 TECHNICAL EDUCATION

“Education is like a diamond with many facets: It includes the basic mastery of numbers and letters that give us access to the treasury of human knowledge, accumulated and refined through the ages; it includes technical and vocational training as well as instruction in science, higher mathematics, and humane letters.”

Technology is rapidly changing the world. Today, there is almost no area of life which technology has not impacted. Education is no exception. EdTech (Educational Technology) represents the implementation of information and communication technologies in the education process in order to improve its quality. Number of quotes about technology in education speak of its importance today. 

In the present day of keen competition and hard struggle, general education is found to be sadly insufficient to procure for man his livelihood. The number of men with general education is legion and all the various departments where these men can be provided are literally packed. The unemployment problem is growing keener and keener every day and unrest and discontent are daily gaining ground.

“In my own view, some advice about what should be known, about what technical education should be acquired, about the intense motivation needed to succeed, and about the carelessness and inclination toward bias that must be avoided is far more useful than all the rules and warnings of theoretical logic.”

Technical education means teaching students and other some practical or mechanical art. It includes training in trade, commerce, carpentry, weaving, agriculture, medicines and engineering. It helps to meet the needs of today’s world of machines. Those who get such education become technical experts or technicians.

“When we consider the close connection between science and industrial development on the one hand, and between literary and aesthetic cultivation and an aristocratic social organization on the other, we get light on the opposition between technical scientific studies and refining literary studies. We have before us the need of overcoming this separation in education if society is to be truly democratic.”

Technical education plays a very pivotal role in the modern age. It produces engineers, builders, doctors and technicians. It promotes the material and economic advancement. People begin to have faith in the dignity of labour. We can save a lot of foreign exchange if we have our own technical experts.

“Personality must be educated, and personality cannot be educated by confining its operations to technical and specialized things, or to the less important relationships of life. Full education comes only when there is a responsible share on the part of each person, in proportion to capacity, in shaping the aims and policies of the social groups to which he belongs.”

Technical education is lacking in Pakistan. Our schools and colleges produce men who are fit only to be clerks. Our youth hankers after office jobs. They dislike to work in factories and hate to learn practical skills. This is why unemployment is on rise in the country. Poverty in Pakistan is due to the neglect of technical education. Our country is rich in raw material resources, but we cannot enjoy the advantage only because we are not equipped with any technical knowledge.

“When we consider the close connection between science and industrial development on the one hand, and between literary and aesthetic cultivation and an aristocratic social organization on the other, we get light on the opposition between technical scientific studies and refining literary studies. We have before us the need of overcoming this separation in education if society is to be truly democratic.”

We can make speedy agricultural progress by using machines. To become self-sufficient in food, we shall have to set up industries that produce agricultural machines. We need a great number of highly qualified technical experts and well-trained technicians to handle, look after and repair machines. This is possible only it we have schools, colleges and universities where technical and scientific education is imparted to the students.

“Like a stool which needs three legs to be stable, mathematics education needs three components: good problems, with many of them being multi-step ones, a lot of technical skill, and then a broader view which contains the abstract nature of mathematics and proofs. One does not get all of these at once, but a good mathematics program has them as goals and makes incremental steps toward them at all levels.”

Pakistan is a developing country. We have to build new roads, hospitals, bridges and dams, and for this we need engineers and skilled workers. We should be able to use our natural resources like coal, gas and electricity to make Pakistan a developed country.

“In my own house I rigged up a laboratory and studied chemistry in the evenings, determined that there should be nothing in the manufacture of steel that I would not know. Although I had received no technical education I made myself master of chemistry and of the laboratory, which proved of lasting value.”

In all the important cities of Pakistan, technical schools and institutions are being opened every year. We need more and more such institutions. The idea of the dignity of labor should be popularized among the students. They should be encouraged to get technical education for their bright future. In spite of the immense value of technical education, the attitude of educated people towards it is not what it should be.

“The Common Core State Standards Initiative is an important step forward in ensuring that the United States remains competitive in the global economy. Career technical education (CTE) shares the Initiative s goal that all students must be college and career ready. CTE programs that incorporate the Common Core Standards will ensure students have the academic and technical knowledge and skills to be successful in the 21st century workplace.”

In short, technical education makes a country rich, prosperous, and resourceful, but it has certain limitations also. Too much of technical education changes a man into a machine. We should never lose our sense of proportion. We should also have an element of liberal education in technical education.

“Policymakers can draw much from 'The Need for Roots': such clear prescriptions as that employers ought to provide an adequate vocational training for their employees, education should be compulsory and publicly funded, and include technical as well as elementary education.”