Workshop Theme 4: Developing Vocational Education and Skills Training Partnerships with Business and

Target Audience:

This theme is targeted to those working as practitioners or policy makers in Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and industry leaders with an interest in workforce development and industry skills training.

Rationale:

The development of high quality, relevant and comparable Technical and Vocational Education and Training has important private, public and economic benefits for ASEAN and its individual member states. These include improving mobile workers ability to achieve higher living standards, developing stronger regional economies supported by an agile and skilled ASEAN labour force. There will be benefits for industry through a skilled workforce which meets the specific needs of each industry sector.

Important work has been done already at the policy level through the ASEAN Qualification Reference Framework (AQRF) and the East Asia Summit VET Quality Framework. Individual ASEAN countries are also advancing their TVET capacity and quality and are at different stages in the development of their TVET systems.

Workshop Objectives:

This theme will explore practical strategies to enhance Technical and Vocational Education and Training in the ASEAN Community and in specific member countries.

It will focus on three areas:

• First, strategies to build collaboration and partnerships across national boundaries consistent with the objectives of the AQRF for agreed standards and recognition of qualifications to facilitate labour mobility across ASEAN.

• Second, strategies to engage industry (including local companies and MNCs) and harness the voice of industry in identifying current and future skill needs and ensuring that training is job relevant and meets benchmarked regional industry quality standards.

Finally the theme will explore the opportunities for partnerships at the institutional and sectoral level between ASEAN countries and Australia to enhance capacity, quality and access to TVET in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC).