NN46, September 2011
Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark
Which Way to Go? Political Realities vs. Best Practice. The Case of Mozambique
By Jorgen Billetoft, PEMconsult, Denmark
Email: jorgenbilletoft@gmail.com
Keywords: TVET reform; relevance and quality of skills training; access to education; donor collaboration.
Summary: As demonstrated by the ongoing TVET reform project in Mozambique, the government and development partners are not always driven by the same agenda.
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With technical and financial support from the World Bank and a number of bilateral donors (Germany, Spain, the Netherland, Flanders and Denmark), the Government of Mozambique in 2006 launched a major reform of the existing TVET system. In short, the stated goal of the reform process is to “expand access for all citizens to TVET and improve its quality and relevance”. Furthermore, the government aimed at a training system that is flexible and adaptable to current market needs in a globalizing economy and that would recognize that training provision comes from a variety of sources including training in the enterprise.., and which is financially sustainable.
These noble goals are stated in a so-called Letter of Sector Policy. The letter, signed by the Minister of Finance as a precondition for a USD 30 million IDA credit to the TVET reform, was drafted by a World Bank TVET specialist.
Other development partners (Portugal, Italy and Canada) have financed parallel TVET reform initiatives through separate bi-lateral agreements with the Ministry for Education (MINED) aimed at developing new (but not necessarily) competency-based curricula and, in the case of Italy, refurbishment of selected TVET institutions. Although partly aligned to the objectives of the TVET reform project, the project has not been directly involved in the implementation.
The development partners have been divided on whether to stress the importance of quality and consolidation, or whether to accept the government’s politically motivated desire to expand the system. A small group of donors has voiced serious concerns regarding the financial and managerial implications of an expansion, while others have supported the government’s expansion plans. However, the majority of development partners have not taken a stance in this debate, hereby indirectly supporting the government’s position.
“If I would say anything, there was a complete neglect on the part of the donors to insist upon a focus on quality improvement. Their representatives were mute. They were either not strong/confident/ or interested enough to take on the government's approach possibly because they did not understand the policy debates sufficiently well to understand the key differences in the strategic approach or they chose not to because they were compromised by some other agenda… At the end of the day they… allowed the government to abandon its original commitment to concentrate on quality improvements tied to labour market demand which was the basis on which the Bank originally provided the funding” (written comment by TVET advisor).
The government’s priorities in many ways reflect the demographic realities of the country. The education pyramid in Mozambique is one of the steepest in Africa. A study of skills trends from 2005 found that while access to primary education has improved significantly in recent years less than 10% at that time made it to secondary education and not more than 2-3% of an age group completed 12 years of education. Although the access to secondary education has improved somewhat since that time, there is still a very considerable pressure on the government to provide educational opportunities for those who cannot be accommodated in secondary schools because there are not enough schools or not enough teachers.
In many ways this pressure is the root of the dilemma, i.e. whether quantity or quality concerns should drive the TVET reform. It also touches upon the question regarding what kind of education provides the best preparation for the labour market in a resource-scarce country. The government’s response is a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand it has – reluctantly - accepted the ongoing TVET reform initiative with emphasis on quality improvement and consolidation, but at the same it has with considerable success sought to secure funding for an expansion of the existing TVET system with little attention to the approach and priorities of the ongoing TVET reform programme. This has been possible because the development partners have had considerable difficulties harmonising their approach to the TVET sector, resulting in several uncoordinated parallel TVET projects.
The result of this development is an increasingly stratified TVET system. The top is characterised by a small number (4-5) of refurbished and reasonably well-equipped TVET institutions capable of providing adequate skills training based on the CBET approach, while the rest consists of a large – and rising - number of under-resourced, poorly equipped training centres that are still a far cry from being able to offer training at a level matching the requirements of the labour market. Interestingly, no estimates have been made of the cost and resource implications of the two approaches.
In short, the government is driven by a predominantly political agenda focusing on supply-side concerns. Therefore, the intention is to offer as many as possible some sort of post-primary competence believed to enable them to earn a living of a kind. On the contrary, based on what is considered international best practice, development partners have been arguing that the focus should be on the demand of the labour market and that, if resources are spread too thinly, the reform will not have the intended effect on quality and relevance of the TVET system. Reflecting the Paris and Accra agendas, more recently there has been a tendency among the development partners to soften their position and accept the government’s priorities. This in turn has caused a divide among the development partners and the withdrawal of those most critical of the government’s expansion plans.
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Cite article as: Billetoft, J., (2011) ‘Which Way to Go? Political Realities vs. Best Practice. The Case of Mozambique’, in NORRAG NEWS, Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark, No.46, September 2011, pp. 92-93, available: http://www.norrag.org
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