Articles

Information for TVET Practitioners

TVET and Culture?

Governments in many developing countries today are accelerating their investments in technical and vocational education (TVET). The two objectives are to (i)  advance the skills of its young population many of whom have had no opportunity to enrol or graduate in the education system and (ii) meet the needs of future industrial growth.  With this investment comes a great opportunity to rethink what TVET needs to be.

In rethinking TVET, there is the constant challenge that very little  research has been done on the relationship between skills development and culture. How do we go about developing  systems that fit into the country’s culture, values, traditions and social interaction as well as its particular level of development? Timing is everything. In the past, development banks and donors have funded a range of interventions that mimicked the “best practice” of the countries of origin of the consultants that were hired. But many have not taken off...or the take off was so cumbersome and protracted that it was clear the plane was not well designed...or fit for purpose. Why?  Often, because at that particular point of the countries’ development, the donors’ idea of the required system had no resonance at all with the real issues on the ground. The designs sound good but when the project lands on the ground, it is the ultimate square peg being pounded into a round hole!  

As an example, perhaps competency standards make sense as the foundation of a TVET system based on National Qualifications Frameworks in some industrial economies ...perhaps…..but if the real issue on the ground is rice on the table for poor families or helping develop self employment because there is little and less developed industry,  then making NQFs with all the requisite huff and puff a precondition for loans and assistance is just plain silly! Timing is everything! Projects are designed 2 and 3 years before implementation and then a world financial crisis or a tsunami intervenes but nothing changes in the TVET design. Or, perhaps, the design is based on the assumption of a close working relationship between industry and government when the reality is...well...a bit different. Some technical advisers and consultants have an understanding how to make their competence relevant within the culture of the developing countries.  Others, are a bit too impressed with the specific expertise they were  hired for or the last thesis they wrote in their own country and ….well...it doesn’t work out too well!!!!  Linking TVET development to what is POSSIBLE in a developing country at that particular time is not done often, and it is not done well.

In many developed countries,  United States, Australia may be good examples, immigrants fleeing from an inflexible home culture formed an eager base for new TVET models based on individual economic success, not long term family and societal values. The chances of the  children of the European underclass who are now the consulting experts, convincing educators of cultures with millennia of tradition that women should be plumbers rather than go to University or young men construction workers rather than unemployed engineers simply because it might lead to money, are not good.  In Cambodia, for example, one consultant in an attempt to improve his colleagues view of the capacity of the Khmer people, commented that if they were able to build Angkor Wat without Western consultants  then maybe the problem of TVET development was in the way the design is  done rather than in some genetic ineptness of the people! …...Read on

As  governments address  the skills development needs of the country, they must  construct a vision of TVET that is consistent with their own realities while at the same time aligned to the expectations of employers.