**1. Introduction**

Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is a comprehensive system provided for training at the technician level to aspiring youth, which essentially forms part of an integral employment system in any developing nation. TVET and skill development systems are pivotal to employment creation, employment generation and employability across a variety of domains of economic activities in a country. India has taken a stride in providing wider opportunity for skill training and the technical vocational education for few decades. TVET and skill development have grown manifold with opportunities and seamless integration with formal system of training and employment. Across the Asian region, the technical vocational education has broadly remained the same within the context of skill-based training system, outcomes and learner attainment.

All developing nations have instilled strong belief that well-trained workforce is the cornerstone to the growing economy and development of the nation. They always serve as a backbone to the nation in bringing more skilled workforce, aspiring to quality services and relevance to the market-driven economy.

In order to give an understanding of evolution of TVET in a typical developing nation like India, a sequential history of policies and strategies are briefly presented in the following section. It is also common to observe that abutting nations to India have systems even before India's republic, as they all have emerged from the erstwhile British regime, countries have adopted as per the country's need, demand and availability of resources with time.

The vocational training system in India can be traced back to the British Rule, the pre-independence and post-independence (before and after 1947, respectively). During the onset of economic growth, the vocational education received little attention. However, the government at that point of time consciously put in place policy initiatives recommended by such Committees during pre-independence era. The key initiatives in technical vocational education training system enumerated schemes detailing the programme framework, learner attainment, etc. The policy decisions in pre-independence were through the statutory committees and intended reports, as follows: (a) Wood Despatch [1], (b) Indian Education Commission [2], (c) Rise of National Education Movement (1905–1921) [3], (d) the Hartog Committee (1929) [4], (e) the Sapru Committee [3], (f) Abbot Wood Report [4], (g) the Zakir Hussain Committee [5] and (h) the Sargent Report and Central Advisory Board on Education [6].

The recommendations and strategies put forth by these committees laid the foundation for design, preparation and institutionalizing the education system inclusive of technical vocational education. The education policy broadly covered the technical education (the engineering stream), technician and vocational system and related areas. The technical vocational system received its significance as per the priorities at that point and funding availability. The section below presents the highlights relevant to development of TVET systems, in the context of the learner engagement and pedagogy.

The formal structure of education in general composed of primary, secondary schooling and pre-university (5 + 3 + 3 years, respectively), and the vocational studies commenced after 11 years of schooling, as recommended by the Sapru Committee [3]. During this phase, the basic education syllabus along with the crafts curriculum was proposed, wherein all school students to receive the vocational curriculum to be imparted at school level. The pedagogy in basic education and vocational education was given importance and began as a policy as also outlined in its report [4]. In this phase, the assessment, evaluation and student retention in classroom for instructional-based learning were also emphasized to be stakeholder needs. Classroom teaching with common instructional medium and the regional language (mother tongue) were given stressed during this period. Following this, the learning resources such as textbooks, lab manuals and workshop resources received attention in the vocational education at the secondary level.

The vocationalization of secondary education was given importance wherein pre-final and final-year school students at the end of 11 years schooling had the option to specialize in technical and vocational training [5]. During this phase, the vocational education faced impediments during implementation including lack funds, adequate training resources in the centres, schools, lack of trained teachers.

A significant change in the education system along with the technical vocational education training was experienced during the post-independence era. The technical and vocational education received its importance due the labour market needs

*Application of Augmented Reality in TVET, a Modern Teaching-Learning Technology DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99550*

and demand in the industrial manpower. Following this demand, the education received much attention. Several institutional structures along with formal systems in terms of committees and commissions were formed. Some of the key institutional mechanism were (a) University Education Commission [7], (b) Secondary Education Commission [8], (c) Kothari Commission [9], (d) Central Advisory Board of Education [9], (e) National Policy on Education [10], (f) Report of the Working Group on vocationalization [3], (g) Adiseshiah Report – Vocationalization of Higher Secondary Education & 10 + 2 Committee [11], (h) Working Group on Vocationalization of Education [3], (i) National Policy on Education and the Action Programme on Vocational Education (1986) and (j) National Policy on Education 1986, Revised Policy (1992) [12].

It may be seen the aforesaid institutional mechanisms are key to development of TVET system as it is presently and keeps evolving as per the needs, stakeholder demands and the domain expertise. Taking into account the experience of preindependence, the Kothari Commission [13] consolidated an education system to meet the national needs, addressing the labour market scenario, taking into account best expertise of the global situation. Thus, the emphasis for vocationalization was introduced at the pre-university, which included wide variety of areas including agriculture, engineering, non-engineering trades. These areas helped learners to acquire specialization in these areas at the higher education level. Vocational courses after 10 years schooling was emphasized for rapid expansion. Trade specialities in health sector, administration, commerce and small-scale industries were introduced. The trade certification levels such as certificate courses, diploma and post-diploma were designed, and the same was offered by the institutes owned by central government and the states.

With the growing needs and demands in the formal vocational system, there was need to undertake surveys and reformulate strategies to meet the skill demands at various level, the central government constituted with the aim to uniformly expand the scope of such technical institutions across the states. The expansion of trade certification programmes in the ITIs to meet the industry needs at rural blocks for increasing employment to such youth was recommended in Subanayagam Report, 1978 [3]. It is at this stage, ITIs were given importance and positioned as units of training service providers with the industry standards of curriculum, syllabus, examinations and certification prescribed by a national body for the identified trades. The process of streamlining a statutory body named, National Council for Vocational Education at the central level and concurrently, states also the established State Councils for Vocational Education to meet the state and regional needs. These institutional mechanisms served to set norms, standards for various trade level courses, certification standards and examination systems.

With increasing demand for trained manpower in the labour market, the technical vocational education and training gained more relevance in the national and regional level context. The central government at that point realized the importance of restricting TVET system. The vocational and skill trades in the context of industry demands were addressed in a comprehensive manner. During this phase, few additional institutional mechanisms were recommended by the Kulandaiswamy Report, 1985 [3]. By this stage, the ministry responsible for education was vested with the responsibility to synthesize curriculum, learning resources, assessment system and introduction of vocational education in schools. Thus, the responsible ministry set up a national apex institution, the National Council for Education Research & Training, which grew to an extent to spin-off a dedicated vocational education training and research in vocational curriculum and pedagogy, and develop the trainers programme at the national level, which is now named as Pandit

Sunderlal Sharma Institute for Vocational Education (PSSIVE). This was given complete powers to prepare curriculum in additional to the schooling at all levels for the vocational education and preparing the learning resources.

It is seen that the vocational education and training remain the core for skilling the learners and aspiring youth seeking jobs in the market. The central government have initiated various strategies at all levels to make relevant and appropriate with changing trends, demands and needs in the view of variety of stakeholders. The government at all times has accorded priority to skill development as the central sector scheme to promote TVET in partnership with industry stakeholders [14].
