Tajikistan and Central Asia countries in general are increasingly recognizing the strategic importance of VET. The changing socio economic needs, the growth prospective, the need to build solid skills and knowledge, but also the lack of jobs, poverty and inequalities still faced by a high percentage of the population especially in rural (remote) areas, have brought the debate on VET at the centre of policies discussions between the world of education and the world of work and a number of international donors appear to show an increased interest in supporting VET policy development and implementation.

In January 2010 the Ministry of Education of Tajikistan started to work on a new comprehensive National Strategy for Education Development (NSED) covering general education, vocational, technical and higher education; the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection is actively implemented adult education policy. However, the reform efforts highlight a number of common challenges, including:

    •    Address a skill and a qualification mismatch to sustain the economic growth and  social development;
    •    Address socio-economic inequalities, especially rural versus urban differences, access to education opportunities and promote business opportunities (entrepreneurial learning);  
    •    Tackle migration issue both in sending and receiving countries by improving skills development for migrants and a regional migration framework which promotes decent jobs and social protection for migrants

Within this framework, the ETF initiatives in Tajikistan aim at supporting the continued development of comprehensive education and training policies and implementation capacities at different levels of responsibility, as the reform of VET is crucial for the implementation of the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) promoted by the EC.

Overall, The ETF’s objectives in the country can be summarized as follows:
    •    Support the EU external policy instrument programming cycle;
    •    Support relevant stakeholders, particularly the social partners, to increase their involvement in vocational training reforms and develop their capacity for becoming key actors in those reforms;
    •    Build relevant stakeholders’ capacity to analyse and interpret trends and challenges and design, implement, evaluate and review evidence based policies in human capital development;
    •    Improve labour market analysis and support stakeholders in reviewing vocational education and training systems in this light.