China-Southeast Asia Capacity-Building Workshop: Transforming
TVET and Adult Education for Sustainable Rural Development
13 June 2024, Beijing and Ningbo, the People’s Republic of China
(Group Photo of All Participants)
In cooperation with Beijing Normal University (BNU) and China Educational Association for International Exchange (CEAIE), SEAMEO TED has co-organized China-Southeast Asia Capacity-Building Workshop: Transforming TVET and Adult Education for Sustainable Rural Development at Beijing Normal University on 13 June 2024. The workshop was participated by 25 participants as policy makers of education ministries, TVET experts, and school management from 8 ASEAN countries namely Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Some representatives from local and international organizations also joined the workshop with a total of 72 offline participants and over 10,000 online participants. The workshop aims to achieve the following objectives consisting of (1) sharing best practices, lessons learnt, and educational policies regarding TVET and adult education and its impacts on rural sustainable development in Southeast Asia and China; (2) reflecting on how stakeholders in skills development including vocational-technical high schools/colleges government agencies, and industrial partners, can collaborate to scale up skills among students and learners in rural areas; and (3) enhancing closer cooperation and collaboration in implementing future projects on skills transformation for rural schools in Southeast Asia.
(Opening Ceremony of the Workshop)
(Opening Remarks by Dr. Songheang Ai, Director of SEAMEO TED)
Workshop Highlights
The presentations and speeches come out with some key takeaway messages as follows:
- The workshop is aligned with the Global 2030 agenda prevailing the global partnership for sustainable development. In China, education and training link with poverty alleviation with skills provision in regard to sustainable development.
- 267 million people are youth not in employment, education, and training (NEET) globally. However, 6.7 million unemployed workers in the ASEAN region went into economic inactivities. A share of NEET youth increased between 2019 and 2020 in large parts of ASEAN including Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam in 2021. This might be due to job opportunities, education access, and personal characteristics.
- 70% of TVET students in China is from rural areas requiring to skill them to be employed, self-employed, or further studied.
- The Chinese government has built 33 Luban workshops in 27 countries recently. Up until 2023, three Luban workshops were established in Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand. By the end of 2024, six Luban workshops will be established in the ASEAN region to support skills cultivation and development.
- The Chinese government focuses on TVET development because it ranks No.1 in terms of labor force provision, followed by India and ASEAN with massive manufactures and skilled talents. The rural areas of China have a variety of resources which can be cultivated adapting to their local contexts and needs by offering comprehensive skills training to farmers.
- The people living in the rural areas in China are not learnt competently like the people living in the urban areas so that Shanghai Open University formulated construction-oriented community called learning-oriented countryside. We don’t only provide skills training for rural people, but also link the traditional culture of each countryside with skills training.