NN46, September 2011
Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark
Revisiting Research Priorities in TVET
By Shyamal Majumdar, UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre, Bonn
Email: s.majumdar@unesco.org
Keywords: TVET; labor market; research priorities; UNEVOC; e-Forum
Summary: This piece examines the research priorities in TVET perceived through the lens of the traditional TVET orientation to cater to the immediate needs of the labor market. Another view is put forward in expanding the research scope of TVET in the context of the broader socio-economic needs of the society. The views expressed in this piece also consider the outcome of a review of the priority topics covered by UNESCO-UNEVOC e-Forum, a virtual community of TVET experts.
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Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is one of those disciplines with the specific concern in imparting the knowledge, the skills and the attitudes for the world of work. Throughout the long course of its journey, TVET is known for the world of work as a traditional provision linked with professional development, mobility, cost effectiveness and occupational standards, keeping pace with the new developments in the industries to ensure its relevance.
Given the scope of work that TVET tries to cover, defining research priorities plays a crucial role to make TVET not only relevant but also appropriate for its broader purpose; and makes the quality of information available to a greater number of stakeholders useful in defining TVET’s future.
There are two observed tendencies related to research undertakings in TVET. First is the tendency of existing TVET systems to confine research priorities to the immediate needs of the labor market that results in traditional supply-demand orientation of TVET. Second is the tendency to ignore the broader socio-economic needs that TVET can more effectively address. This results in drawing a narrowed view of research priorities in TVET that further dilutes the potential of TVET to effectively assess social dimensions in skill formation and to forecast the needs of the society and the economy in the context of a holistic development, independent of what the labor market dictates.
The lack of research culture particularly in public TVET contributes to the negative impact of these tendencies in the overall design and implementation of TVET programs and the restriction in asserting TVET’s unique role in the context of a balanced social, economic, ecological and cultural development.
Since the Seoul Congress in 1999 and the development of normative instruments in technical and vocational education in 1989 (Convention on TVE) and in 2001 (Revised Recommendations concerning TVE), new awareness had been created among countries in terms of observing innovative practices in TVET, aligning TVET with the rapid changes brought by the globalization in the world of work and acknowledging the emerging role of TVET in national development. These broad areas have overlapping concerns within them which, after more than a decade, remain to be examined through crucial lenses to understand clearly the complexities that surround them.
UNESCO-UNEVOC, a specialized agency for strengthening TVET in UNESCO member states, has, over the years, initiated and mediated a gamut of online and face-to face discussions on TVET issues and approaches through the various international programs undertaken in that last five years. In many opportunities, the topics that have been covered by UNESCO, which also functions as a clearinghouse of TVET information, are drawn from the upstream and downstream approaches.
UNEVOC hosts an e-Forum, which is a virtual community of TVET experts, researchers and practitioners from around the world who share information and knowledge about different aspects of TVET. The forum aims to improve understanding on various topics and to gain greater insights into stakeholders’ interests and priorities in TVET. Analysis of the content and structure of the five-year online discussions has led us to discover dynamic debates on topics that range from competency-based TVET curriculum, international accreditation and qualifications to competency-based standards, institutional development, all held with high and constant priority by online discussants in terms of the quality of discussion and frequency of responses. Discussions largely reflect interest in accrediting TVET institutions and recognizing TVET qualifications.
The popularity of these topics was analysed to have links with the reality that TVET providers and policy implementers have to deal with on a daily life basis. With greater existing knowledge on these topics, increasing the level of understanding, cross-sharing about cutting edge approaches done around the world or offering innovative ideas to make TVET globally relevant, are few of the secondary reasons why they are a priority.
Broader thematic issues, however, received less attention from the discussants till now. Even though discussions were started, there had been relatively small interest from online discussants to float multiple dimension discourse in key topics like TVET and poverty alleviation, defining TVET, HIV/AIDS in TVET, non-Formal TVET or greening TVET. This may have been because stakeholders may have had less experiences to initiate debate, or knowledge to discuss concepts at large, or had much more interest to expound on areas that can nail down genuine realities and opportunities at the ground level.
This reality supports the argument above that since TVET tries to cater to what the labor market needs, interest in making TVET relevant is well-grounded on what is perceived to sell in the labor market. As a result, thematic issues which may have had impact to future shaping of TVET concerns are less attractive to be discussed, less understood, and therefore are less prioritized. This is signaling weak foundation in terms of having these equally relevant issues seriously considered in making systematic definition of what TVET must focus on.
The quality of input to TVET system is just as good as the quality of output it will produce. There certainly is a constant need to revisit research priorities both in the context of the great body of knowledge that may exist but is lacking in concrete realities to reinforce actions and innovations, and the low quality of evidence-based information available to expand discourse about broader social and economic issues that have greater implications in defining the future of public TVET.
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Cite article as: Majumdar, S., (2011) ‘Revisiting Research Priorities in TVET’, in NORRAG NEWS, Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark, No.46, September 2011, pp. 107-109, available: http://www.norrag.org
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