The University of Trans-disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU) announced the launch of vocational education programmes leading to Bachelor of Vocation (B.Voc.) and Post-Graduate Diploma degrees. According to TDU these programmes are inspired by Gandhiji’s Nai-Talim and are based on work-integrated training and are fully apprenticeship/ internship enabled. They empower students with the ‘Earn-while-you-learn’ feature that makes the programme affordable to them. The launch event of the programme will be held on Gandhi Jayanti, October 2, 2021.

Students can work full-time as apprentices/interns at the premises of industries and businesses for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and take theory courses during the evenings and weekends. The apprenticeships/ internships are provided to students in the towns and cities where they live, through local industries and businesses. TDU also arranges to deliver the theory courses to them locally. This programme will give students an edge over their contemporaries in other conventional courses such as B.A., B.Sc., and B.Com. since they will have three years of work experience by the end of their course which makes them highly employable. Students will also learn in real-life situations, on the functional, state-of-the-art, infrastructure available with their employers. 

Fees for these courses will range from Rs. 2000 to approximately Rs. 4000 per month. Many students will receive stipends from the places where they apprentice, as per the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme, so they will be able to cover the cost of their education from their own earnings. The programme is designed so that it is extremely affordable to students given that many families have also been impacted by Covid-19. They will also have the option to exit the B.Voc. programme at the end of the first or second year with a Diploma/ Advanced Diploma certification respectively, which is in line with the National Education Policy 2020. 

An initial set of courses in the electronics and healthcare sectors will be launched in line with the UGC deadline of 1 October 2021. Admissions have just begun, in the first week of September. The list of course offerings in September 2021 are as follows:

• B.Voc. in Hardware & Networking and Security Systems (HNSS),
• B.Voc. in Refrigeration and Cooling Systems (RACS), both in the electronics sector, to be offered in Bengaluru
• B.Voc. in Medical Laboratory Technology (MLT),
• B.Voc. in Medical Imaging Technology (MIT), 
• Post-Graduate Diploma in Medical Lab Technology, all in the healthcare sector, to be offered in Nipani, North Karnataka

For admission and course details visit vep.tdu.edu.in