A day long workshop was organized on 'Implementation of Skill Courses and Vocational Training in Higher Education' by Government College for Women (GCW), M A Road to deliberate and envision future prospect of vocation oriented education to prepare skilled workforce and enable them avail employment opportunities in various sectors in the changing technological scenario.Commissioner Secretary, Higher Education Department, Parvez Rohella, who was also chief guest on the occasion, said the workshop is an initiative to discuss about the introduction of vocational education courses (certificate, diploma and degree) in institutions to incorporate skill oriented education with mainstream education. He said that the education department will introduce sixty vocational courses in institutions of J&K. He also said that NEP, 2020 stresses on integrating professional courses with mainstream education besides other multidisciplinary courses. He said it is imperative to introduce new Vocations that could cater to large job markets.Meanwhile, Commissioner Secretary also released Magazine 'The Pamposh' of Government College for Women.Among others Director Colleges, Prof M Y Peerzada, Vice Chancellor, IUST Awantipora, Prof Mushtaq Ahmad Sidique, Principal GWC, Yasmeen Ashai, Consultant and Program Manager, School of Vocational Education, TISS, Mumbai, Nayana Mallapurkar, Associate Professor, NRCE, Dr Aarti Srivastava, Incharge CIIBM, JKEDI, Irtif Lone, Dir NIFT, Dr Javid Ah Lone, other college Principals, University Professors, HoDs of different institutions and other resource persons attended the programme.In her welcome address, Prof Yasmeen Ashai introduced the theme of the workshop and said that need of the hour is to prepare skilled workforce by adopting vocational programs by education institutions. She stressed on deliberation over various dimensions of skill and vocational education. She said new education policy has suggested various educational reforms with the sole objective of promoting skill and technical learning. She further added that there is a huge gap between supply and demand of skilled human resource.VC IUST, Prof Mushtaq Ah Sidique, while sharing his experience of working in different universities and educational institutions abroad, pointed out that preparing skilled persons needs social acceptability. He said our society only emphasis on few professions while showing reluctance to accept different vocational skill based courses. He said such attitude shall be changed in the prospect of development.He laid emphasis on availability of funds and human resource for vocationalization of education and development of infrastructure.On the occasion, Irtif Lone gave a detailed presentation on skill development for employment and entrepreneurship. He gave an overview of the unemployment rate and employment scenario in J&K besides highlighted employment potential of various sectors including agriculture, horticulture, dairy farming, Handicraft and handloom.Besides, Nayana Mallapurkar, presented TISS model of Vocational Education during which she shared the structure and functionality of the model and trained imparted to youth. Dr Aarti Srivastava also participated virtually and gave a presentation on Skills for employability.