Dr. D. Mukhopadhyay
Professional education is the education that is imparted by a particular person to a group of students attributed with orientation and intelligence for pursuing higher studies in a profession i.e. a particular avenue of educational discipline. At this juncture, it is a point of discussion and it is an imperative to throw some light over the meaning, scope and significance of meaning of a Profession. A Profession is a particular branch of educational discipline that offers specialized knowledge resource of extensive and comprehensive knowledge along with adequate practical training for a certain number of years in a particular branch of educative discipline . Professions are particular discipline oriented and discipline based. For instance, Engineering Profession is based on Science, Legal Profession is based on Law, Chartered Accountancy, Cost and Management Accountancy and Company Secretariship Professions are based on Commerce Education, Medical Profession is based on again Science and mainly bio-science oriented education based. A certain degree of merit and talent is the prerequisite to take up and pursue a particular Profession. A Person is recognized to become a professional in a particular branch of education when the concerned person is said to have acquired a vast theoretical education and knowledge and obtained rigorous practical training in that branch of education. For instance, a doctor needs to undergo housestaffship after four years of rigorous education in medical colleges and hospitals, an engineering student is to obtain necessary training during the regular course of studies, a Chartered Accountant(CA) is to undergo three and a half years of audit assistantship in order to obtain the membership of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) , a Cost and Management Accountant (CMA) is to undergo three years of practical training in industry before obtaining membership of the Institute of Cost Accountants of India (ICAI). There are many more professional courses in India which are employment oriented and generates employability of the persons who pursue that professional course and obtain the Professional Degrees. Moreover, a Professional is entitled to have private practice in the profession in which it earned proficiency , comprehensive knowledge and expertise and therefore professional does not depend on only employment as career. A Professional also generates employment for others.
The higher education system of India is the third largest education delivery system in the world. First is the USA and next comes China. The governing body of Indian higher education is the University Grants Commission (UGC) constituted under the University Grants Commission Act, 1956. Again a particular Profession is regulated and controlled in terms of standards, code of conduct and ethical objectivity by another statutory body. For instance, Bar Council of India (BCI)controls the Legal Profession, Medical Council of India(MCI) regulates and controls the Medical Profession, the Institute of Cost Accountants of India(ICAI) controls and regulates the Cost and Management Accountancy Profession in India, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India(ICAI) controls and regulate the Chartered Accountancy Profession in India, the Institute of Company Secretaries of India(ICSI) regulates and manages the Profession of Company Secretaries in India and so on.
Besides the professional institutes, there are more than 700 Degree awarding Universities and more than 36,000 university affiliated colleges in India and more than 20 million students are enrolled in these academic institutions. Let us take a rough statistics of demographic profile in terms of stream wise allocation and admission of such students. About 38% students are admitted in Arts and Humanities stream, 18 % students are studying Science, 18% students are enrolled in the discipline of Commerce and Management and about 18% students are studying Engineering and Technology and remaining 8% students are in other disciplines like Fine Arts and other vocational domain of education. For obtaining an employment in any sector of the economy, it is a must for a candidate to have employable behaviour, attitudes and attributes and all these are trained by a particular profession. A Profession is meant for a career in a specific branch of studies as it has been mentioned earlier and for example Doctors, Accountants, Engineers, Lawyers, and many more. But it not possible for everybody to become a specified Professional due to various reasons and one of them is financial problem. But without practical skill, hardly any employment is available for anybody. It is difficult to provide employment to the students who pursue pure Arts because pure Arts is not directly related with commercial operation of an organization.
Now it is the need of the hour to initiate and offer short term skill development programmes to those who cannot afford to become a full ledged Professional. Government of India is very serious about this issue. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India ICAI) and the Institute of Cost Accountants of India(ICAI) do provide CAT (Certified/Certificate in Accounting Technicians) course which is quite helpful for the students of Arts , Commerce and Management Disciplines to pursue these short term programme and earn employability in the commercial organizations. CAT programmes of both the Institutes is of low cost involvement and this course is of one year duration and even after having CAT, if the candidates desire, they can enroll for the main courses of these Institutes and become a full-fledged Finance Professionals. A Professional is attributed with competency to handle a particular problem and offer an optimum solution to such problem. A teacher is also professional in general sense since they have proficiency and competency to handle social problems of man making. A teacher is attributed with pedagogical knowledge in addition to specialized knowledge in a particular branch of studies. The purpose of this write up is to bring to the notice of the decision makers that more and more professional institutes need to be promoted and general skill development scopes and avenue should be given to every student irrespective of the discipline it chooses to pursue higher studies. India is economically backward because majority of graduates can hardly take part in economic development of the country. Majority of unemployable youth depend on the government jobs because in most of the government jobs only general awareness except in certain cases is necessary. In government jobs, there is hardly any accountability for the work responsibility and in bureaucratic system, it takes lot of time to settle any issue due to various reasons of course. Students of many States in India are even not aware of different kind of Professional Courses which are available in the country. Majority of the students knows only university administered Arts, Commerce and Science Degrees both at Bachelor and Master Levels and maximum Ph.D. in a particular branch. Ph.D. is meant for them who are aspirants of teaching jobs in college and universities.
But college and universities cannot provide employment to every Ph.D. or Master Degree holders due to inherent limitations. Therefore, it is the industries and corporates who can provide mass employment provided the candidates are attributed with professional skill, competence and expertise. A Professional can meet the challenges of day to economic and commercial organizations and they can help in wealth creation. Whether it is public sector or private sector based organization, nature of challenges and socio-economic problems are almost the same. Thus India today should concentrate on more and more professional education curricula and motivate young unemployable graduates to take up a particular profession as his career in accordance with its ability and interest.
(The author is Professor of Management, School of Business, Faculty of Management, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra, Jammu & Kashmir.)
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