The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is set to introduce vocational courses at the Plus Two-level.

Apart from arts, science and commerce streams, the students would have the option of picking vocational courses.

A CBSE official at the Patna regional office said: “This is being done keeping in mind the career opportunities of the students. The CBSE aims to give the students maximum options so that they could go for any vocational course they wish to.”

He added: “The more options they have, the better it is for them. This, in turn, would help them in empowering themselves for self-employment. In the future, they can take up a career of their choice.”

The vocational courses help students to get trained in subjects that require specialised knowledge and training. The programmes put emphasis on basic manipulative skills, technical knowledge and occupational information.

A number of vocational courses have been introduced at the Plus Two-level this year but no school has started them so far. This is because the syllabus has not yet been finalised. Moreover, the schools have not been communicated the approval of the syllabus. Therefore, it is likely that these courses would be introduced in the different schools from the next academic session (2013-14).

The director of May Flower School, J.R. Sharma, told The Telegraph: “The clear picture of the syllabus, faculty and infrastructure has not been made available to the schools so far. One of the reasons is that most of the students have already enrolled themselves somewhere for other courses. So the students may not be available to take up any vocational course at a later stage.”

Sharma added that the vocational courses would specially help those students who have not opted for medical or engineering streams to empower them for self-employment after Class XII.

The courses, which would be introduced in the next academic session, are agriculture, tailoring, nursing, fashion designing, hospitality and tourism and others. Altogether, about 40 courses are to be introduced.

Rahul Raj, a Class IX student, said: “I am delighted that CBSE would introduce vocational courses in Plus Two level. By the time I reach Class XI, I will have a number of options to choose from. Moreover, I feel the earlier we start a course of our choice, the better it is for us.”