8th RECOTVET Regional Policy Dialogue & 10th ESSSA Annual Expert Meeting

It is crucial to prepare the workforce in ASEAN with relevant skills to promote economic growth and employment. Rural areas face unique challenges in this regard typically experiencing underemployment, exclusion of disadvantaged groups and a lack of training opportunities tailored to the needs of the rural labour market. Given that half the population within the ASEAN region live in rural areas, this poses a fundamental challenge to the overall socio-economic development of the region. Strengthening Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and employment services is key to building skills, bringing people into jobs and, as a result thereof, transforming rural areas.

In cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) of Lao PDR, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) are co-organising this event on TVET, skills development and employment promotion in rural areas in the Southeast Asia region.

Objectives

The conference will provide TVET and labour policy makers as well as TVET practitioners in the region an opportunity to discuss ways of building skills to support the creation of more and better-quality jobs in Southeast Asia’s rural areas through:

• Exploring possible modalities for improving access to TVET and employment services;
• Identifying successful practices for enhancing the relevance of TVET and better tailoring employment services to specific groups;
• Sharing common challenges for making policies and programmes more successful.

Sessions

Plenary Session 1: Key labour market and skills challenges facing rural areas.

Breakout Session 1A:  Suitable framework conditions for improving access to TVET in rural areas.

Breakout Session 1B: Improving access to employment and skills through innovative learning solutions.

Breakout Session 2A:  Better linking job-seekers with employers - Innovative job matching approaches in rural areas.

Breakout Session 2B: Employment promotion by supporting self-employment in rural areas – Approaches, potential and limitations.

Breakout Session 3A:  ATVET – A suitable model for enhancing the relevance of TVET in rural areas in ASEAN? 

Breakout Session 3B: Private sector participation in TVET in rural areas, examples from ASEAN.

Plenary session 2: Improving the alignment of TVET with economic development in rural and remote labour markets.