Vocational education
Vocational education and training in Asia
Lessons from Asia on providing vocation education and training
Authors:
J.B.G. Tilak
Publisher:
Network for Policy Review Research and Advice on Education and Training , 2002
This article provides a brief account of the progress made by countries in the Asian region in Vocational Education and Training (VET), and discusses a few important emerging issues of serious concern. It notes that VET can take a number of forms, including vocational and technical education in schools, polytechnics and colleges; pre-employment and on-the-job training; apprenticeships; and non-formal training centres. The level of development of VET varies widely among Asian countries, and the proportion of public education expenditure spent on it ranges from under 3 per cent in Pakistan to 8 per cent in Taiwan.
Considering obstacles to developing VET systems in Asia, the paper argues that:
- social attitudes to vocational education are not encouraging in many Asian countries: attitudes towards manual work are negative, and VET is seen as education for the poor
- the demand for VET may decline as countries move away from reliance on the agricultural and manufacturing sectors, in favour of the service sector
- VET planning has rarely been based on an analysis of existing mismatches between the skills of graduates and the requirements of the labour market
- vocational education programmes are costly, and educational budgets in several developing countries do not allow sufficient resources to be provided for it
- the changing policies of international organisations like the World Bank have caused confusion among developing countries about whether or not it is wise to invest in VET.
The paper concludes that VET is important for economic growth, but that the relationship is not a simple one. Policy recommendations include that:
- Each country needs to decide how much VET to develop, depending on its own level of development and demand for skills.
- Vocational education need not be purely technical: it can include skills that are useful across a wide variety of occupations. This is particularly important in rapidly changing economic systems.
- Vocational education should not promote inequalities within the educational system. This means that the quality of vocational education has to be at least as good as secondary education, and VET should be linked with higher education, so that it is not perceived as a “dead end.”
- The government has to take a dominant role in providing VET, since it is difficult to guarantee quality in the private sector.
