Press release regarding the launch of B.Voc. Programmes

The University of Trans-disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU) is pleased to announce the launch of vocational education programmes leading to Bachelor of Vocation (B.Voc.) and Post-Graduate Diploma degrees. These programmes, inspired by Gandhiji’s Nai-Talim, are based on work-integrated training and are fully apprenticeship/ internship enabled. They empower students with the ‘Earn-while-you-learn’ feature that gives them several advantages.

Students 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 functional, state-of-the-art, infrastructure available with their employers.

Fees for these courses will range from Rs. 3000 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 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 ahead of the UGC deadline of 1 October 2021. Admissions will begin 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) and

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), and a

Post-Graduate Diploma in Medical Lab Technology, all in the healthcare sector, to be offered in Nipani, North Karnataka

Additional courses and locations are expected to be introduced in January 2022.

All students who have completed their Standard 12 exams in the Science stream or have vocational education backgrounds are eligible to apply for the September 2021 courses. In addition, applicants who wish to develop job-specific skill sets and obtain commensurate certification from a reputed academic institution such as the TDU and those who possesses skills but are unable to progress in their career on account of the lack of formal training and certification are also encouraged to apply.

TDU plans to conduct admissions twice a year, in January and July, and to offer courses at many more locations in Karnataka, and in many more sectors of the economy, tracking the availability of apprenticeship/ internship opportunities in the State.

---