Final Report from UNESCO-UNEVOC Global Forum

Representing a wide range of international TVET stakeholders, the Forum’s participants successfully identified concrete and coherent directions and interventions at the global level for the future of TVET and skills development in the post-2015 development agenda.

From among the many insights that were generated during the Forum, the report highlights three as being particularly pertinent to the prospects of TVET in the Post-2015 agenda:

1. Transformative TVET implied developing a new vision for TVET and its goals

TVET has the potential to be transformative in the lives of individuals and communities around the world. To realize this potential, however, participants of the Forum stressed the necessity of avoiding the false dichotomy between work and life. There was broad consensus that policy must reflect a coherent vision for TVET in which the notion of skills for both life and work is well integrated. Skills, the participants shared, are not just necessary for employability, productivity and competitiveness but also for community development, social cohesion and addressing environmental issues.

2. Approaches to youth unemployment and greening TVET should go hand in hand

The need to take an integrated view of TVET for the world of work and for life was a resounding message drawn from the Forum. This same integrated view was called for by the participants in addressing sustainable development issues. In this respect, there was agreement that the challenges of youth employability and skills on the one hand, and greening TVET on the other must be dealt with as a single issue in an integrated manner rather than on separate tracks as was the case in the past.

3. There is a need for stronger skills forecasting mechanisms

One conclusion from the Forum was that investments need to be made at the global level in mechanisms that can identify the skill requirements of the future. This will necessitate renewed efforts to build labour market intelligence systems that are able to identify and communicate existing skills opportunities and needs through robust partnerships between employers, analysts and training providers.

The report documents these and other discussions which helped inform and stimulate the global debate on TVET in the post-2015 agenda and how the Forum made use of cross-regional networking and partnerships as well as synergies across different UN agencies to achieve its aims.