Vocational education: the come-back?

Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) has fueled phenomenal economic growth in some countries and fallen short of expectations in others. Whilst TVET is still seen as second-class education by many, globalisation has prompted many governments to take a renewed interest.

This brief article from UNESCO's Education Today newsletter gives a background to TVET, and describes experiences with TVET in China, South Korea, the Czech Republic and Russia. It highlights how TVET accounted for about 40 per cent of World Bank educational loans in sub-Saharan Africa, until the early 1980s, when a radical policy shift led many experts and policy-makers to conclude that training is best left to the workplace. But this view has been re-assessed in the light of the experiences of countries with highly skilled workforces, such as China, India, and South Korea. The article explains how in South Korea, the government introduced TVET as a way of satisfying its forecasted labour needs while reducing pressure on universities to enrol more students. It also reports that there has been political support for vocational education programmes in Kenya, Ghana and Botswana.

The article concludes by emphasising that about 80 per cent of jobs in poorer countries require some form of vocational skills. It suggests that investment in skills may help to bridge the demand for jobs with the needs of society.