Learning for Life, Work and the Future Initial ... - Unesco-Unevoc

Page 12 Main Working Document Learning for Life, Work and the Future
2 The Purpose of the Workshop
The main objective of this workshop is to stimulate
regional co-operation in the reform of technical and
vocational education; the main outcome is to identify,
prioritise and initiate subregional projects which will
facilitate reforms of TVET in the subregion with
emphasis on the following key issues or challenges:
• Access to TVET
• Raising the quality of TVET
• Staff training and professional development
• Recognition and accreditation of qualifications
within the TVET system
• Unemployment
• Training for the informal sector
• The role of ICT in the TVET system
• The impact of HIV/AIDS within the TVET system.
The issues and problems are discussed in more detail
below, taking into consideration matters raised in the
papers prepared by the various participants from the
subregion. It should be noted that the relevance and
use of ICT permeates through all these issues.
3 Access to TVET
This is an issue that permeates all national policies on
TVET. Most papers submitted stated that demand for
TVET places is much greater than supply. Equal
access and opportunity is illusory because of inadequate
facilities and equipment.
The existing infrastructure and programmes still
need to be improved in a number of ways to cope
with the increased number of students.
(Munetsi, Zimbabwe)
Much of the demand lies not in urban areas, but in
rural and remote areas where education and training
facilities are under-resourced or non-existent.
(Kopeka and Waterman, Lesotho)
Regarding the issue of equal opportunities, one of the
Zambian papers stated that:
The equal opportunities philosophy, although written
down, has been very difficult to implement. For
example, the retired and the retrenched need
retraining but there are no special courses for these
people...the same applies to women and to those with
special needs. (Mupanga, Zambia)
The suitability of TVET programmes for different
target groups and local needs also affects access.
The 1996 policy on TVET emphasises demand-driven
training as most programmes were completely at
variance with what was happening in industry.
(Mupanga, Zambia)
In response to this ‘demanding’ challenge, a system
of Technical, Entrepreneurial and Vocational
Education and Training (TVET) was created which is
flexible and demand-driven, and focuses on the skills
and competencies required in the labour market.
(Chafa, Malawi)
The Mauritius paper further endorses this issue by
stating that:
A Mauritian workforce that is skilled, knowledgeable,
competent, flexible and always re-skilling and/or upgrading
itself is necessary not only to attract foreign
direct investment but also to ensure its capacity to be
more productive, innovative and competitive. Programmes
to fit people rather than people fitting into
programmes. (Dubois, Mauritius)
In translating equality of access into full equality of
participation, the priority must therefore be to tackle
these barriers to participation. Possible solutions include
the innovative use of facilities; cost-effective
design and construction of facilities and their usage;
putting equal opportunities policies in place; having a
wide range of programmes that are flexible to suit all
target groups.
4 Quality of TVET
A South African Experience: Integration of
Education and Training in South Africa
Traditionally education and training were seen and
treated as separate entities with separate and disparate
purposes. The former was seen primarily as a
means of developing the child as a person while the
latter prepares the person for the performance of a
specific type of work. The concept of integration, of
an integrated approach to education and training,
demands an effort to recast the thinking about education
and training in the traditional mould as
separate definable entities, limited to certain periods
of an individual’s life, into thinking about them as a
single entity within a single system. Education and
training should be seen as a lifelong learning process
in order to enhance quality of life for all.
(Samuels, South Africa)
If there is general acceptance of this view, we should
rephrase the statement in the World Declaration on
Education for All regarding learning to read as follows:
Whether or not expanded education and training
opportunities will translate into meaningful development
− for an individual or for society − depends
ultimately on whether people actually learn as a
result of those opportunities; that is, whether they
incorporate useful knowledge, reasoning ability,
skills and values.
Our interpretation of ‘quality’ should be much more
than the sum of institutional buildings, teacher-training
programmes, curriculum reforms, and provision of
learning, training and teaching materials and equipment.
It should be based on the belief that if education
and training is to succeed in its complex task of
responding to the multiplicity of demands, it must be
organised around four fundamental types of learning
which Delors refers to as the Four Pillars of
Education: