13th UKFIET International Conference on Education and Development, “Learning for Sustainable Futures – Making the Connections”
French
Information is gathered from other international organizations that promote skills development and the transition from education and training to work. The Interagency Group on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (IAG-TVET) was established in 2009 to share research findings, coordinate joint research endeavours, and improve collaboration among organizations working at the international and national levels.
Other sources
Experts from many international, regional and national agencies generously share their views, experiences and findings on skills, helping policy-makers among other stakeholders to understand the linkages between education, training and the world of work, and how to integrate skills into national development planning to promote employment and economic growth.
Training quality and relevance
The conference’s sub-theme "Decent and Sustainable Work" will be co-convened by UNESCO-UNEVOC and the Centre for International Education Research, University of Nottingham
The Sustainable Development Goals represent an important step forward in development thinking by bringing together sustainable development with poverty alleviation, inequality and technological change in a holistic account of how people’s lives can be enhanced. This vision reemphasises the central importance of work to development in a way that was lost in the MDGs. Such work should be decent and sustainable. It should contribute to incomes, productivity and competitiveness but also help in addressing issues of environmental degradation, safe sanitation and community development. However, work also contributes to human development, integrating people into society and furthering the development of their identities.
A return to the development centre stage of work means also a renewed appreciation of the importance of skills. Here, the SDGs are working in parallel with UNESCO’s development of a new global vision of skills for work and life, as expressed in the Shanghai Consensus of 2012 and the Revised Recommendation on Technical and Vocational Education and Training, which is due for approval in late 2015.
The Shanghai Consensus coined a new notion of transformative TVET; radically changed internally but also acting as a catalyst for wider sustainable development. However, work is required to develop the new concept further. As well as such theoretical work, there is a need for further exploration of promising practices that develop one or more aspect of a transformative vision for TVET. It will also be important to develop new models of evaluating TVET against the transformative agenda.
This sub-theme will be co-convened by UNESCO-UNEVOC and the Centre for International Education Research, University of Nottingham. It will be concerned with matters of theory, policy, practice and evaluation and will include policymakers, practitioners and researchers.