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The petitioner is an Association of Managers who seek to challenge Ext.P4 syllabus, Ext.P5 guidelines and Ext.P6 question paper of Draughtsman Civil (Theory) Paper-I of the 3rd semester. The challenge essentially is on the premise that the students, to whom the members of the petitioner caters, are poor, underprivileged and non-meritorious who are unable to cope with the semester system and syllabi of the various courses; as programmed by the National Council of Vocational Training (for brevity `NCVT') termed the 'Trades' in the vocational stream of academics.

There is no complaint from any other State/Organization pertaining to Draughtsman (Civil) question paper of 3rd semester. It justifies that the question of said trade were relevant, though a few question are from the syllabus of 1st and 2nd semester but none from 4th semester or from other trades."

8. Obviously, the NCVT found that the questions which are alleged to be out-of-syllabus, were relating to the portions included in the syllabus; but in the 1st and 2nd semesters. No student can insist that in the examination of a particular semester only portions taken in the said semester be included. The specific stand of the NCVT is that no questions of the 4th semester were included; since the students would not have been taught the same in the 3rd semester. However, to test the aptitude of the students as also to enhance the skills acquired in the course, there were certain fundamental questions which related to the portions of the 1st and 2nd semesters, which cannot be found fault with. No student can have a grievance on the count that a question appeared in a semester, which actually was of the previous semester. An objection could definitely be raised on account of a question from a portion which was never taught, but not otherwise. It is also to be noticed that the so called out-of-syllabus questions are said to be fundamental to the trade.

10. The petitioner, an Association of Managers of Industrial Training Institutions affiliated with the NCVT, cannot dictate the syllabus or the conduct of the examination since it is for the NCVT, the academic body, to decide on the same. If specific instances of some mistakes having crept in, in the question papers are detected, then the same could be definitely raised before the NCVT.

11. The petitioner asserts that Exts. P7 and P8 representations filed, was not answered. The same are answered in Exts. R1(f) and R1(h) respectively. This Court does not find any reason to interfere with what has been stated in Exts.R1(f) and R1(h). Further Exts.P7 and P8 are said to be representations addressed to the NCVT, respectively by the petitioner and the students. Both of these highlight the grievance against the semester system and the difficulty expressed by the students with regard to the exams. They also seek to give emphasis to the training aspect and not the evaluation through examinations.

13. As to the emphasis sought for training, the same cannot be ignored, especially in a vocational stream. But, that cannot lead to total erasing of evaluation by examinations. Herein, the petitioners continue the course with affiliation to the NCVT, and the certificates are to be issued by the NCVT. Training is imparted in the individual Industrial Training Institutions (ITI) and the assessment of the practical skill alone cannot be the norm for issuance of certificates by the apex body. The apex body too has to be satisfied about the practical and theoretical knowledge of the students certified to be skilled in a particular trade. It is the duty of the petitioners herein to rise up to the occasion and have competent tutors, to train their students and equip them to be successful in the exams. The petitioners prayer for dilution of standards, in vocational training, for the alleged reason of their students being unable to cope with the syllabi, has been found to be an exercise rendering futile the course itself.