AMMAN - After spending months forming policies and strategies, the Technical and Vocational Education and Training Council (TVETC) is set to transform the vocational training sector, a Labour Ministry official said on Monday.
Vocational training in Jordan has recently come under strong criticism due to its failure to meet market demands, spurring the ministry to establish the council late last year to restructure the field, according to TVETC Secretariat Director Nadera Bakheet.
"The sector is fragmented and uncoordinated. It is being carried out by three governmental institutions using different models and methodologies," Bakheet said in a press conference yesterday, noting that the private sector is mostly absent from the vocational training process.
Established in September 2008 and chaired by the labour minister, the TVETC has met five times to develop a unified strategy to streamline the three major training organisations: The ministry, the Vocational Training Corporation and Balqa Applied University.
"The council is also responsible for evaluating the quality of graduates and whether the labour market's needs are being met," Bakheet said, adding that the TVETC intends to avoid graduating Jordanians in specialities not in demand.
Increased dialogue and coordination between the public and private sectors are needed to ensure graduates transfer their skills into actual employment, said Ghazi Daboubi, executive director of the Labour Ministry's development unit.
In order to bridge this gap, the council will work with the private sector to overhaul the sector and combat the negative image vocational training has gained in recent years, he added.
"We expect to see positive results within two years as we hope reform efforts will provide the local market with the required workforce to encourage economic growth and enhance the competitiveness of the country's enterprises," Daboubi said, noting that implementation of the TVETC reform programme will start in March.
The TVETC vocational sector reform is funded through a $7.5 million loan secured by the government from the World Bank in addition to an approximate $30 million grant from the European Union.
Meanwhile, the ministry, in cooperation with the Canadian Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology, has started implementing the Building and Extending Skills Training Systems Project, the ministry said.
The four-year project aims at assisting the Kingdom's efforts to reform vocational education to be more responsive to the changing socio-economic, project director John Knap told The Jordan Times.
By Hani Hazaimeh
© Jordan Times 2009
