Down to Earth: A practitioner’s guideline to work with business and industry in TVET

In TVET, chambers of commerce and industry, business associations and companies are an important partner. Their active participation is crucial for developing labour market oriented TVET systems and generating qualified graduates who are highly employable because their skills match the needs of those who are creating the majority of jobs: business and industry employers.

The input and engagement of business and industry is particularly needed in TVET policy and planning, the development of competency and occupational standards, the design and delivery of TVET programs, the assessment of skills, as well as in the evaluation and revision of TVET programs. Companies and business associations, however, often do not take up an active role in nor understand themselves as part of the formal education process. Rather, they often see themselves only at the receiving end of graduates from TVET institutes.

"Down to Earth: A practitioner's guideline to work with business and industry in TVET’ was developed by GIZ staff to provide concrete tips and tricks how to tackle the challenges of engaging business and industry in TVET, as well as to offer ready-made tools – from presentation templates to checklists and sample documents – that can be easily adapted to different country- and project-specific circumstances.

The guideline was developed based on the experience of GIZ staff working on private sector cooperation in TVET across different Asian countries, but it can be used by other organisations and in other country contexts as well.