Public-private partnership for technical, vocational education and training (TVET)

Surabhi Banerjee
Netaji Subhas Open University

Abstract
Millions of young people and adults in the Commonwealth are engaged as apprentices in the private and informal sector. However, a greater proportion of apprentices and master tradesmen and women lack formal vocational or technical training. They also lack access to current technological information and upgrading, knowledge about environmental issues and entrepreneurial skills to manage their crafts and shops. In recent years, Governments in some developing countries have undertaken to go into partnership with the private sector to promote apprenticeship and a few Governments have extended their policies, to include basic and second cycle levels of formal technical, vocational education and training (TVET).

The panel on Public-Private Partnership will first take another look at the scope of TVET and attempt to widen it, to include the vast majority of poor women and men outside the formal educational and training parentheses. This informal group constitutes the community of learners’ livelihood earners, which require basic literacy and skills trainings (trainings that are often of considerably short duration), to help them improve their livelihoods. Secondly, it will discuss how Government and the private sector can team up, to promote the requisite training in skills for personal and national developments as a contribution to achieving the MDGs.

The panel consists of international experts in functional literacy, vocational skills, and open, distance and technology-mediated learning involved in policymaking and the implementation of policies at the institutional and national levels across the Commonwealth.

Panel Members:

Professor Surahbi Banerjee, Vice Chancellor, NSOU, India: Chair
Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, Vice Chancellor, UEW, Ghana: Co-Chair
Mr. John Bartram, PATVET Consultant, Australia
Mr. Francis Donkor, Senior Lecturer, UEW, Ghana
Dr. Nuru Yakubu, Executive Secretary, National Board for Technical Education, Nigeria
Mrs. Anita Thomas-James, Programme Manager, COL-UTech Diploma, Jamaica

Full text of paper not available.