Career Aspirations and Background of Students Opting for Fashion Education Courses in India

摘要

Fashion education is one of the fast growing and prosperous vocational education streams across the world. It has rapidly expanded during the last two decades; the courses offered in fashion education are predominantly related to Apparel, Home Furnishing, Accessory and Communication fields which are diffused into the domains of Design, Technology, and Management. The scope, prospects and employment opportunities are enormous as the fashion industry has spread across many other fields. The students undergoing interdisciplinary vocational programs in fashion and allied subjects are required to develop an open mindset and balanced personality for effective learning in order to face the challenges in the dynamic real life fashion environment. For the continuous and overall development of the student in education, his present status, domain acquaintance, perceptions and aspirations play important roles. This study has been mainly conducted to understand students in the perspective of these aspects. Primary data through a well-designed questionnaire had been collected from over 180 students of 2013-14 batch who have taken admission into various fashion related courses (under and post-graduation) at National Institute of Fashion Technology, Hyderabad Center, India. The collected data has been compiled, analyzed and presented through descriptive statistics. The current research involved the analysis of data pertaining to Fashion Design, Technology and Fashion Management students both at UG and PG courses respectively. The findings of the study are useful in understanding the back ground of the students, their awareness on fashion education, source of information, preferences of careers and life aspirations. The findings of this study can help in refining the curriculum and the overall fashion education process.