Sunday Times 2
Colombo to host int’l seminar on technical, vocational education and training
An International Conference on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) will take place in Colombo on July 15 and 16. A joint effort by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and the Deutsche Gesellschaft Fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the conference will bring together participants from all over the world including 150 from Sri Lanka.
The theme for this year’s conference has been announced by the Secretary to the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Skills Development B. Wijayaratne as being “Enhancement of Skills for Social Integration, Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development.”
Secretary Wijayaratne said the Minister of the Youth Affairs and Skills Development could not be a part of the announcement of the conference due to his participation and presentation of the Colombo Declaration-a result of the Youth Conference held just 24 days ago at the ECOSOC gathering in New York. He hoped that the conference would uplift their prospects in terms of not just training, but also quality. The conference would be the ideal platform to showcase the National Vocational Qualifications Framework, he added.
The broader theme of the conference is not entirely novel, according to Senior Advisor for the GIZ Kumudhini Rosa
She said the main theme would for practical purposes be considered under specific areas such as the access and quality of TVET, development of the qualifications framework, apprenticeship and training and the promotion of entrepreneurship. Expecting parties from a wide sphere of expertise from policymakers, practitioners, professionals and even students. She was pleased to announce that other supra national organizations like the World Bank, ILO -to name a few, would be a part of the proceedings.
Speaking of the German involvement in the TVET sector, Country Director GIZ for Sri Lanka and Maldives, Randa Kourieh- Ranarivelo said that out of the 93 TVET projects undertaken by GIZ, 50 of them are in the Asian region.
In their efforts for creating a sustainable, demand driven TVET sector not only on a national level, this Conference is to be the third international conference made possible by GIZ. “The first was in Hanoi, the second in Jakarta and the third is going to be in Colombo,” she said..
“The relationship between Germany and Sri Lanka goes back to about 60 years,” said Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Sri Lanka and the Maldives Juergen Morhard. The German-Tech Institute in Moratuwa stands testament to this and he hopes that the Conference and its success would speed-up the process of their attempt in setting-up a similar institute in the North.