A joint report, prepared by the key international agencies active in the field of technical and vocational education and training (TVET), proposes a set of indicators that can support countries in assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of their TVET systems.

The new report is the product of a common work of UNESCO and its statistical branch (UIS), the ILO and the ETF with technical support from the European Commission, the OECD, Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ).

The primary purpose of this report was to strengthen the ability of governments, particularly in the developing countries, to design, monitor and evaluate their TVET sectors.

‘When we drafted these recommendations we tried to take the perspective the countries, not our own,’ said Jens Johansen, a quantitative analyst at the ETF. ‘The countries can now take these indicators and use them for policy making in their specific context, even without our involvement.’

There are several longstanding problems related to monitoring and evaluating TVET. They include the fragmented provision of TVET in many countries, the problems related to definition of TVET programmes and generation of relevant indicators, and the absence of adequate mechanisms to collect, process and aggregate the data.

The experts mapped the commonly used indicators and identified five areas of TVET, which the indicators can help assess:

- Access and participation,

- Relevance,

- Quality and innovation,

- Governance,

- Financing.

For example, one of the proposed indicators helps describe the pathways between vocational education and higher education. Different countries might find it important to know if their educational systems are flexible enough and if allow for an easy transition from TVET to higher education. The indicator will help them measure it.

‘It’s important that all international agencies involved in TVET came together to discuss this particular issue and agreed a common position,’ said Mr Johansen. ‘It helped us benefit from each other experience, like ILO’s practice in labour market indicators of UNESCO’s - in higher education.’

Now the set of indicators is ready for the field-testing and each organisation is invited to conduct its own trials. The ETF is already testing the indicators in the Torino Process [http://www.etf.europa.eu/web.nsf/pages/Torino_process] that will cover up to 31 partner countries neighbouring the EU.

The Inter-Agency Group on TVET was established in 2009 with the aim of coordinating activities of the agencies active in the field of TVET. It comprises the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the European Commission, the European Training Foundation (ETF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).