| Venue:- Le Meridien Kochi, India |
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| Official Conference Manager |
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Conference Themes
Skills Development
Skills Development covers three major sub-themes as follows:
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Skills Development for National Development |
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Global Development Discourses; North-South Dialogues |
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Regional Cooperation: Who can benefit from whom? |
The role of skills development and training in national development has long been recognised. The sub sector includes formal, non-formal and informal modes, with different government Ministries, development partners, NGOs, private and faith-based providers and local community groups all involved. This diversity requires enhanced coordination and resource-sharing to be effective.
Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) has not enjoyed significant proportions of national education budgets and tends to be under resourced. More and more young people are looking for training with an employability focus and so the role of the informal sector of the economy in providing access to informal skills training is becoming more prominent. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that in Africa, 90% of employment is in the informal sector. There is potential for important links between formal, non-formal and informal skills training systems that can be strengthened by the introduction of a national qualifications framework that recognises prior learning and competence.
The sub sector is inequitably accessed: boys benefit more than girls, urban students more than rural dwellers, learners with higher levels of basic education more than those with lower levels. Technology can therefore be harnessed as an important tool in reaching out to all sections of society. How can the application of appropriate technology and innovative approaches address some of these inequalities?
The skills development sub-theme seeks to explore these issues. In particular we will discuss how the application of flexible and blended learning methodologies can help to mediate the key issues of access, quality and efficiency in skills development and training.
Partnership and collaboration is a feature of the work of practitioners in open and distance learning. How have North-South and South-South collaboration and partnerships benefited the participants in skills development programmes? Regional cooperation is also an important support system for many practitioners: what are the effective and cost-efficient mechanisms for getting the most out of such an enterprise?
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