TVET Strategy & Legislative Framework

Africa entered the Millennium with severe education challenges at every level. To cope with these challenges, Conferences of Ministers of Education have reiterated the need to increase access to education, improve quality and relevance, and ensure equity.

Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) forms part of this pledge to advance education across the continent, especially with a focus on equipping young people with the required skills to enter and effectively perform in the job market through specialised technical training.

As part of African Union’s (AU’s) Second Decade of Education (2006-2015), the continental TVET strategy takes account of concrete recommendations to address policy issues, challenges and gaps that constrain the implementation of initiatives and programmes for skills development on the continent. It examines the possibilities of TVET as a response to facilitate the promotion of national development, social cohesion, political stability, poverty reduction and regional integration. It draws on recent regional and international initiatives aimed at promoting TVET to foster youth employment.

The African Skills Portal for Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship (ASPYEE) provides a continental platform on which good practices relevant to the current continental TVET Strategy and Legislative Framework can be showcased and up-scaled at country, regional and continental level.

 

Vision

The continent’s TVET strategy is guided by the vision of the AU - “an integrated, peaceful and prosperous Africa, driven by its own people to take its rightful place in the global community and the knowledge economy”. This vision is predicated on the development of Africa’s human resources. Education is the major means by which Africa’s citizenry will be prepared for active participation in the attainment of this vision. TVET should not only provide skills for paid employment, but also to encourage and support creativity, innovativeness and entrepreneurship required for creating jobs and harnessing employment opportunities.

 

Strategy

The main objective of the strategy is to promote skills acquisition through training, responding to the demand of the social economic milieu. The strategy places premium on fostering employability tests, sustainable livelihoods and responsible citizenship. Furthermore, thrust is placed on building capacity to create and innovate, anchored within the frame of entrepreneurship.

The major objectives of the strategy are as follows:

  • Promoting an efficient and cost-effective system of quality TVET;

  • Ensuring the relevance of training and employability of trainees;

  • Developing creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship;

  • Informing improvements in the legal and political environment – including strengthening coherence and management of training provision;

  • Promoting quality apprenticeship; and

  • Strengthening the status and attractiveness of TVET.

One of the core priorities of the strategy is to build a unified general framework that can serve as a continental platform around which AU Member States will collaborate in building coherent and integrated TVET systems at national, regional and continental levels. This will require developing and implementing national, regional and continental plans.

Another priority of the continental TVET strategy is positioning TVET within the education system as a tool for the empowerment of African people, especially youth. Specifically, TVET should be viewed as a culmination of all the training needed for social-economic development of the continent.


Legislative Framework

Addressing the institutional challenge of TVET governance should be at the heart of policy and reforms. This involves first drawing up a legal framework and a coherent TVET policy that also takes into consideration the following factors:

  • Organisation of the private sector, particularly the TVET informal sector;

  • Description of consultation mechanisms at the three levels: national, regional continental ;

  • Direct involvement of parliaments of AU Member States;

  • Creation of a TVET quality supervisory authority;

  • Establishment of an implementation body for the strategy; and

  • Establishment of youth-friendly entrepreneurship funds.

 

Policy Making & Regulation

The role of Member States is to create a TVET quality supervisory authority and as well ensure an enabling environment for guidance and counselling services of trainees.

A core condition for successful implementation of a national TVET strategy is the development of a national TVET policy that sets out the Government’s vision for skills development. This should be accompanied by a clear articulation of the synergies between the national, regional and continental priorities and plans, for purposes, inter alia, of taking advantage of intra-Africa shared learning and support.

Furthermore, countries are encouraged to articulate the synergies and complementarities between TVET and other sectors of the national economy. Successful implementation of the strategy will also be pursued through promoting consistence between the national TVET strategy and regional, continental and international frameworks of education and training policy protocols.

 

TVET Research

TVET development should be placed at the forefront of technical information to keep abreast with technological developments across the continent and the world. TVET itself then becomes an object of research putting production lines at the centre of development in order to acquire the ability to anticipate that is always needed in the education system. Through such research, TVET teaching will be constantly reviewed.