NN38, February 2007
Technical and Vocational Skills Development
NEW ILO INITIATIVES ON SKILLS AND EMPLOYABILITY IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
By Trevor Riordan, Skills and Employability Programme, ILO, Bangkok
KeywordsSkills, Employability, Asia, Pacific, ILO
Summary
Many countries in Asia-Pacific have identified skills development as a key priority. They are finding it a growing challenge to respond to the skills needs of their workforce in a time of increasing globalization, new technology and changing patterns of work. The ILO aims to provide more effective services to ILO Member States on skills issues, and this article summarizes the response of the ILO to these challenges.
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Many countries in Asia-Pacific have identified skills development as a key priority. They are finding it a growing challenge to respond to the skills needs of their workforce in a time of increasing globalization, new technology and changing patterns of work. In response to these challenges, the ILO has developed a new Regional Skills and Employability Programme (SKILLS?AP) to provide more effective services to ILO Member States on skills issues.
All the relevant units in the ILO, at the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, in the three sub-regional offices, at headquarters and the Turin Centre will now be coherently integrating all programmes and activities for skills development in the region into a single work-plan. This plan will form a Strategic Framework for Skills and Employability in Asia and the Pacific. It will enable the ILO, together with our key donors and strategic partners, to address skills issues in the region in a strategic and coherent way.
One of the aims of this initiative is to help countries improve their competitiveness and productivity by promoting lifelong learning to ensure that skills are constantly renewed and adapted and workers have core work skills that equip them for a wide variety of potential jobs. Another aim is to reorient policies for education and training to focus on the needs of working people, especially the poor and excluded. Countries grappling with the aftermath of disasters and conflicts have also emphasized the importance of skills development for helping people find new jobs and restore livelihoods.
SKILLS-AP builds upon the invaluable earlier work of the Asia and Pacific Skills Development Programme (APSDEP), including one of its most valuable elements ? the Regional Skills Network in Asia and the Pacific. Two regional meetings of the partner institutions were organized in 2005 to revitalize the network and develop a more effective basis for cooperation in light of the changed needs for skills development in the region. The first Technical Meeting of the Regional Skills Network Partner Institutions held in Incheon in November 2005 brought together, for the first time, national skills development partner institutions in all ILO Member States in the region, including those institutions operated by workers and employers organizations, to discuss skills development issues. The meeting adopted a Statement of Common Understanding in which ?it is agreed that ILO constituents across the region will share their knowledge and experience in order to optimize human resources development processes and promote decent work. This will help constituents to improve the skills and well-being of people to improve the economy and facilitate development of the region as a whole?.
The partner institutions also agreed upon a Framework for Cooperation on Skills Development for Asia and the Pacific, which ?comes out of a shared commitment to cooperation, recognizing that all partner organizations in the region have information and experiences to share which will be valuable to others?.
Now that ILO Member States in Asia and the Pacific have strongly supported and endorsed these initiatives, SKILLS-AP is working with its constituents to further develop cooperation and partnerships to carry this important work forward.
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