Research for TVET Policy Development

Abstract

Following the UNESCO-UNEVOC international meeting on ‘Innovation and excellence in TVET teacher and trainer education’ at Hangzhou, China on November 8-10th 2004, the Chinese Ministry of Education through Tianjin University, UNESOC-UNEVOC and the German government, through InWent, jointly organized a follow-up conference on ‘Development and implementation of a Master Degree standard for teacher and trainer education in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in East and South East Asia’. The conference took place at Tainjin, China on December 9th and 10th 2005. [This paper] is a revised version of the manuscript prepared by [the author] for that conference. The paper points to questions which the author thinks research could address in order to provide guidance to the formulation of national development of policy on TVET. The questions are derived from what the author sees as frequently ‘talked about’ issues in international policy debate on TVET. Research is used in a wide sense, not merely ‘academic’ research. The issues include: labour market monitoring, keeping abreast of technology, national training authorities, national training funds, national qualifications frameworks, financing, private institutions, modularization of curricula, human resource development, coping with management complexity, inducing industry to do more training, dual systems of basic TVET, low dosage TVET in mainstream secondary schools, TVET for illiterate and semi-literate adults, and indicators of performance that relate to effectiveness, equity, cost and efficiency. Especially in the early stages of policy formulation, research on such matters can provide relevant knowledge when major reorganization of TVET is considered by a country.