By directing our strategy towards securing and increasing productive employment we are better able to support our cooperation countries in creating labour market-oriented technical and vocational education and training systems and functioning labour markets. Providing equal opportunities for rich and poor, North and South, men and women requires that people maintain their employability on their own initiative and position themselves successfully in the labour markets. We adhere to the UN Millennium Development Goals, the objective of “Education for All” and the Action Programme 2015 of the German Government.

In our work, we link up with structures already existing in the cooperation country. At the same time, we build on the strengths of German technical and vocational education and training and promote cooperation between the public and private sector and civil society. The principles of a social and ecological market economy determine our action. We believe in “as much market mechanism as possible and as much state intervention as needed” and follow the principle of performing services as close to the client as possible. Initial training should essentially be a public good. For lifelong learning, we rely on the responsibility of companies, associations, communities and learners.

We act as intermediaries between reform needs and expertise in change processes. We arrange international exchanges of experience wherever the structural elements of other countries’ technical and vocational education and training systems and labour markets are of interest to cooperation countries. In the process we look for alliances and offer expertise in sustainable solutions. Where several donors are concerned, we place great value on coordinated and complementary measures.

Sustainable development links cooperation at the policy level with the formation of concepts, fortification of institutions and implementation of pilot measures. A holistic approach connects public and private actors at all levels. Partnerships not only tap new resources for technical and vocational education and training and functioning labour markets, they also lead to a better trained workforce being more efficiently placed in businesses and civil society. Here we rely on customised strategies and continuous support for sustainable development processes. A systemic, multilevel approach of this kind allows concrete measures to be taken with specific challenges in mind and enables opportunities—such as a willingness to change—to be seized.

The responsibility for putting reforms into effect lies with our partners. We impart know-how, we structure and back-up reform processes and we organise training for those active in the fields of technical and vocational education and training and labour markets.  We combine these instruments as needed when it is a matter of

• establishing the distribution of roles between the state, the private sector and civil society in technical and vocational education and training and making it financially feasible in the long term

• integrating learners and learning processes into company practice and ensuring lifelong learning in the work place

• upgrading the training, advisory and management personnel in the technical and vocational education and training  and labour market systems

• introducing accredited standards for employment and education systems into national and regional qualification frameworks

• setting up technical and vocational education and training and labour market research as an independent academic discipline as a matter of course

• designing efficient transitions between training and productive work.

These approaches and this thematic orientation are what make our work stand apart and are responsible for the success we have attained in our fields of activity.

Further Information

• Technical and vocational education and training
  Factsheet with general information about TVET
  gtz2009-en-technical-and-vocational-education-and-training.pdf, 0.16 MB (English)