Planning and policy development for technical vocational education and training systems

This article analyzes issues such as the scope, scale, and coherence within technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and across different sectors within particular countries to demonstrate the complexity of TVET policy formulation. It is argued in the article that tensions between the pressures for global uniformity and regional specificity should be considered by policymakers. It is also argued that any attempt to develop a universal set of principles for policy development should be adopted with caution, particularly due to differences in the labor-market structures across the countries. Two types of theories are proposed to provide the basis for understanding how educational policy could be planned. They are the high-skills thesis and life-based learning which provide the basis for macro- and micro-levels planning. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.