July 8, 2016
Testament to its role as a major technical vocational education and training (TVET) player in the Asia-Pacific region, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) will host a meeting of experts to discuss continuing ASEAN efforts in the quality assurance of TVET qualifications.
“This gathering is an opportunity for us to learn and share from each other’s experiences, and to begin to craft strategies on how to implement a more harmonized framework of TVET qualifications. If we are to realize the ASEAN Economic Community’s (AEC) vision of greater prosperity for everyone in the region, we need to work together and develop the right tools,” says TESDA Director General, Secretary Irene M. Isaac.
According to Isaac, the event, which will be held at TESDA’s Women’s Center in Taguig City last July 11 and 12, will bring the nations within ASEAN closer towards the AEC’s aspirations for a freer flow of learners and skilled labor within the region.
The meeting, the second of its kind on “Quality Assurance of Technical and Vocational Education and Training Qualifications”, was organized by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Bangkok. Participants to the meeting include international experts of national qualifications frameworks (NQF) and quality assurance in TVET, UNESCO researchers, and officials from concerned ministries in the Asia-Pacific region.
In a letter to TESDA Secretary Irene Isaac, UNESCO Bangkok Director Gwang-Jo Kim stated how TESDA’s “rich experience in developing mechanisms for quality assurance of TVET qualifications” prompted them to offer the hosting duties to the Philippines.
Participants to the meeting will present their respective country reports that include quality assurance principles, qualification processes, and how these are understood and applied by stakeholders. The proposed quality assurance guidelines for TVET qualifications in the region will also be presented and discussed.
An earlier gathering held in Bangkok, Thailand in October 2015, produced a discussion paper which identified issues involved in assuring quality and consistency of qualification processes. The outcomes of the two meetings will be considered in the development of guidelines for designing effective and harmonized quality assurance of certification in TVET.
Many countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the Philippines included, have already established their respective NQFs and are in the process of developing ways to implement these. For workers’ qualifications including TVET certificates to be recognized within the region, these NQFs will need to be referenced against a regional framework, the ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework (AQRF).
The AQRF seeks to compare qualifications of skilled labor in ASEAN member states and supports the mutual recognition of these qualifications, promotes higher education and learning quality, and facilitates better mobility of labor.
As each country’s NQF and the AQRF are being developed, attention is steadily shifting to the implementation of these frameworks, particularly towards mechanisms that assure or certify the quality of workers and their training. These mechanisms are the foundations for mutual trust and recognition of TVET certificates across borders.
The two regional meetings of experts and subsequent meetings, follow the framework of an ongoing global UNESCO study entitled “Quality Assurance of TVET Qualifications”. The study aims to examine quality assurance mechanisms, explore the possibility of developing international guidelines on quality assurance for the recognition of qualifications, and identify a set of world reference levels to facilitate the international comparison and recognition of TVET qualifications.
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