Agencies for International Cooperation in TVET:
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Restructuring TVET: Current Approaches

The delivery patterns of Technical and Vocational Education and Training worldwide are characterized traditionally by a great variety of approaches, ranging from school-based provision to non-formal training arrangements, or any combination. In response to the global economy, a market-oriented approach towards education is favoured by more and more actors, also in TVET. Skills are required to respond flexibly to rapidly changing demands in a combination of traditional and new fields of technical and vocational work, dominated by the knowledge paradigm of the Information Age. Knowledge-intensive work invades traditional work environments and causes a demand for life skills adaptable to new evolving contexts.

A combination between education and training, knowledge and skills is representative for the concept of TVET itself. Skills development can best meet the demands, if the fields of education and labour are organised and analysed in a coordinated and market-oriented way.

The restructuring of TVET systems worldwide shows the following trends[1]:
  1. Generally a policy shift from input-based to output-based activities is favoured.
  2. Exclusively government-controlled TVET systems are opening up to a linkage with private TVET institutions and skills development providers (including company-based training), sometimes co-financed from national budgets.
  3. Entrepreneurship in TVET and skills development is encouraged through micro financing.
  4. Greater autonomy is being granted to TVET institutions.
  5. The involvement of all partners in the field in political decision-making is favoured.
  6. New financing as well as certification mechanisms are envisaged at national, regional and international levels to assure quality.
  7. The curricula for the training of trainers and apprenticeship schemes are being revised.
  8. Dual forms of training are promoted.
These approaches are often recognized and supported by Agencies for International Cooperation.[2] Aid modalities are presented in the Trends in International Cooperation Policies section.
[1] Atchoarena, David; Delluc, André, Revisiting technical and vocational education in sub-saharan Africa. An update on trends, innovations and challenges, Paris 2002 (UNESCO Publishing), p. 2. <back>
[2] Atchoarena, David; Delluc, André, Revisiting technical and vocational education in sub-saharan Africa. An update on trends, innovations and challenges, Paris 2002 (UNESCO Publishing), p. 9. <back>

 
 
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