Vocational Education Technology: Rural India

Vocational Education and Training (VET) helps bridge the gap between limited education and gainful employment. However, it is difficult to make VET readily accessible to economically and educationally challenged communities. To meet this challenge, we introduce a novel solution that adds unique elements to the realms of education technology: vocational education enhanced through both multimedia and haptic technology. This paper will present conceptual elements of revolutionary haptic technology to be applied in vocational education settings as well as present two different vocational training tested in the field using multimedia and haptic technologies. Through the application of multimedia, virtual reality and haptic technology to VET, we demonstrate that this enhanced vocational education and training has the capacity to convey complex concepts and skill sets to illiterate and semi-literate individuals. We also show the vast potential for applicability of such enhanced VET across India, and the resulting promise of increased employment and improved livelihoods for hundreds of thousands of people.