TVET Seminar

Experience has shown that to be successful, interventions to enhance the quality and relevance of technical and vocational education and training must be demand-driven or, in other words, in line with the current and future needs of the labour market. Therefore, development organisations supporting the supply-side of the skills equation are increasingly interested in good data about and analysis of the skills, trades and sectors that are most promising for current and future employment, particularly youth employment.

As most organisations work in contexts where these types of data are not readily available or reliable and where there is limited awareness of the different types of labour market assessments and how to apply them, there is increasing willingness to invest in methods and tools that will inform programming decisions and support partners, be they Ministries of Education and Training, TVET teacher / instructor training colleges, vocational training centres, etc.

A number of questions come to mind in relation to matching skills supply and demand: what are the different methods and tools for labour market analysis and assessment available? What is the added value of these various methods and tools? What are their limitations? What are the minimum requirements, in terms of time, capacity and budget, for applying these methods and tools? What type of data is needed to feed in the tool and what kind of technical knowledge should be available when putting theory into practice? And how can the time, capacity and funding available for such data collection and analysis be used most effectively?

To answer these questions and help organisations make informed decisions, the Educaid.be working group on technical and vocational education and training (TVET) has invited two international experts to shed their light on the issue.

INTERNATIONAL EXPERTS

Annelore Verhagen, Junior Economist

Skills and Employability Division

OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs

Annelore’s work focuses on understanding which skills are needed in the workplace, how skill needs change due to trends such as increasing digitalisation, globalisation and population ageing, and how regular participation in learning activities can prepare workers for this changing world of work.

Kevin Hempel, Founder and Managing Director

Prospera Consulting

Kevin’s work focuses on increasing the effectiveness of employment promotion interventions for vulnerable groups, such as demand-driven training, entrepreneurship promotion, intermediation services, and public works. His work includes diagnostics and research, program design, monitoring and evaluation, and capacity building.

The OECD Skills and Employability Division has in the past few years been involved in the development of several important publications, among which: Skill needs anticipation: Systems and approaches: Analysis of stakeholder survey on skill needs assessment and anticipation (ILO, 2017); Getting Skills Right: Good Practice in Adapting to Changing Skill Needs (OECD, 2017); Getting Skills Right: Assessing and Anticipating Changing Skill Needs (OECD, 2016); Getting Skills Right: Creating Responsive Adult Learning Systems (OECD, 2019).

Kevin is developing a Guide on labour market assessments in developing countries (to be published in late 2019) on behalf of GIZ, the German Development Agency and the VET Toolbox. This document seeks to address the above-mentioned challenges by providing orientation and guidance to relevant stakeholders on the selection and use of different types of labour market analysis/assessment in partner countries. Hence, the tool is expected to facilitate decision-making on the choice of labour market assessments and their implementation.

The presentations will, apart from setting the bigger picture, include concrete examples and will invite questions and exchanges with participants.