people and planet

6
spending across regions. The Ministry of Education
formulates policy and objectives, and monitors the
system, while municipalities manage and plan the
use of physical, human and financial resources and
are responsible for education outcomes. The ministry
introduced a project in 2004 to provide technical
assistance to local governments based on their needs,
recognizing that effective service provision depends on
local financial and human capacity (Development Finance
International, 2016).
While the national education plan is developed at
the national level, there are also regional development
plans and municipal education plans. Multilevel planning is
accompanied by a decentralized budget system,
with a mechanism to redistribute national funds to the
main social sectors: education receives 58.5%. There is
also an equity-based formula to distribute funding across
territorial entities (Development Finance International, 2016).
Malaysia: integrating the technical and vocational education
strategy. Technical and vocational education can be
key for workforce development. The sectors typically
involved are education,
labour, youth and
economic development.
Malaysia works across
In Malaysia, there is
education, labour,
political support to
youth and economic improve workforce
development in the
development in order
interest of national
to help with workforce
economic development.
development
The Tenth Malaysia
Plan 2011–2015
and accompanying
Education Blueprint 2013–2025 project are being
used to overhaul educational and training systems. A
primary objective is to raise the workforce’s skills and
employability so Malaysia can compete with more
advanced economies in the region and become a high
income nation by 2020 (Malaysia Economic Planning
Unit, 2009; Sander et al., 2013).
A key emphasis has been on ensuring that technical and
vocational education, delivered by multiple ministries, is
better harmonized and in line with industry requirements.
The establishment of a national qualifications framework
helped significantly broaden, unify and streamline
the qualifications system. Between 2000 and 2010,
the number of occupations covered by the national
occupational skills standards increased from 500 to 1,585
(World Bank, 2013).
The development of competency standards is
participatory and includes representation from women’s
organizations and private industry. A common set
of standards and testing has effectively unified the
substance of training, despite the fact that it is spread
across ministries. Since 2000, several governmentsponsored
incentive programmes have aimed to foster
links between education institutions and industry
to improve employability and enhance workforce
qualifications with on-the-job training (World Bank, 2013).
… but planning and financing processes remain fragmented
Despite such positive examples, governments typically
define mandates, priorities, budgets, administrative
and planning processes, and monitoring and evaluation
in ways that are at odds with integration (Persaud,
2016). Government agencies tend to focus on policy
formulation and implementation in their respective
sectors, hampering coordination and collaboration, within
the context of a myriad of bureaucratic and political
structures that influence decision-making.
An analysis of 76 low and middle income countries for
the GEM Report indicates that well-developed national
plans that are linked to good education financing plans
and decentralized planning and financing systems,
and that lead to good cross-sector integration, are the
exception rather than the rule in most poorer countries
(Development Finance International, 2016).
National plans need to coordinate sectors horizontally.
Yet, out of 27 countries with survey-based information
on coordination mechanisms for early childhood
development, for instance, while 17 had a nationallevel,
explicitly stated multisector strategy, only 8 had
established processes to coordinate budget-setting
across ministries (World Bank, 2016).
Similarly, the lack of a unified, coordinated approach
has been identified as a major challenge in technical and
vocational education policy (Marope et al., 2015). In Ghana,
institutional training, employment opportunities and
industry needs are reportedly mismatched. Parliament
established a council for technical and vocational education
in 2006 to reform the sector, with representation from nine
ministries and state partners. However, the council was
placed under Ministry of Education control, which led to
rivalries and hindered collaboration (Ansah and Ernest, 2013).
National plans need to be well coordinated vertically with
local implementation strategies. Where local planning is
done well, sector silos can be broken down. Success in
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CHAPTER 6 | PARTNERSHIPS: ENABLING CONDITIONS TO ACHIEVE SDG 4 AND THE OTHER SDGS