TVET-Industry Roadmap Multi-Country Implementation

The Project

In 2025 the UNESCO-UNEVOC Network spearheaded a collaborative project across five UNEVOC Centres in Chile, Jamaica, South Africa, Australia, and the UK. The project involved the development of a TVET-Industry Roadmap to strengthen connections between Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) providers and industries facing rapid technological, environmental, and socio-economic change.

The Roadmap was developed so it involves TVET institutions using a simple four-step methodology:

1.   Industry-Skills Gap Mapping: Each UNEVOC Centre will assemble teams of educators and industry stakeholders to systematically identify skills shortages, using surveys, employer consultations, and analysis of local employment data.
2.   Creating New Data: Centres will gather fresh, granular insights into emerging skills requirements from focus groups, workforce analytics, and collaborative research with regional employers, ensuring training provision matches real industry practices.
3.   Relationship-Building Forums: TVET providers will organise multi-stakeholder workshops and roundtables, bringing together educators, policymakers, employers, and students to discuss industry trends, future skills, and potential collaboration opportunities.
4.   Re-imagining Partnerships: Centres will co-develop innovative partnership models, such as flexible internships, co-designed curricula, and shared projects. Best practices, challenges, and solutions will be regularly exchanged among the countries to foster continuous improvement.

Proposed Project for 2026:

The cross-country NCI Project team that developed the Roadmap methodology could be funded to undertake research in 2026 to work with TVET institutions in their countries and perhaps other countries in their region to assess the effectiveness of the Roadmap methodology for building effective TVET-industry partnerships that address industry-skills gaps in their TVET-industry ecosystems. This would involve the research team working with key contacts in TVET institutions responsible for engaging with industry partners to implement the four step methodology. The research design we would use would allow the team to test the Roadmap methodology in real world settings, and thereby identify local as well as  cross-regional issues and themes to inform policy and program development, nationally and globally. A report on our findings and their possible implications for evidence-based policy development would be provided by the research team to UNESCO-UNEVOC and other key stakeholders.

The Challenge

TVET institutions across the diverse countries involved with development of the Roadmap methodology have encountered persistent gaps between graduates’ skills and industry needs, limited capacity to respond to fast-changing workforce demands such as digitalisation and climate change, fragmented relationships with employers, and insufficient mechanisms for sharing up-to-date labour market intelligence. These challenges constrain graduate employability, innovation, and the ability of TVET sectors to support equitable economic growth.

In implementing the TVET-Industry Roadmap across these diverse countries, we see several common and context-specific challenges that will need to be addressed for success. These include:

• The rapid pace of technological change, which continuously shifts the demand for skills—particularly in areas such as digital transformation, renewable energy, and automation.
• Many TVET institutions might find it difficult to keep curricula current, due to limited resources and inflexible accreditation processes.
• Industry engagement may remain fragmented, with employers perceiving TVET as lagging behind in innovation and not sufficiently responsive to real-world needs.
• Socio-economic inequality and disparities in access may pose further difficulty.
• Rural communities, women, and marginalised groups often lack pathways to participate fully in TVET programs or industry-linked training.
• Language, cultural differences, and local policy frameworks also influence the types of partnerships possible across countries.
• Collecting relevant, up-to-date labour market data may be hindered by insufficient data infrastructure or slow sharing between government and education stakeholders.
• While enthusiasm for partnership forums might be high, ongoing commitment from employers sometimes may wane without clear incentives or demonstration of mutual value.
• Institutional silos within TVET and a lack of dedicated staff for relationship-building may make cross-sector collaboration more challenging.

Overcoming these obstacles requires dedicated capacity-building, policy support, and mechanisms to ensure inclusivity across all participating countries. We will research these issues as part of our implementation project, and offer recommendations for addressing each of them.

Outcomes

Our research on implementation of the Roadmap methodology is likely to yield a number of crucial outcomes that could assist wider take-up of the methodology and its perceived benefits. These include:

• Improved Job Readiness: TVET graduates will gain stronger industry-relevant skills, with employers reporting increased satisfaction and hiring rates.
• Curriculum Modernisation: Training programs will be updated to reflect cutting-edge technologies, green practices, and local industry needs.
• Expanded Collaboration: Ongoing partnerships will be institutionalised, and formalised using such mechanisms as MOUs or Charters, providing robust channels for input from industry and continuous curriculum renewal.
• Regional Impact: The initiative will strengthen local innovation ecosystems, promoting equitable access to quality training, and contributing to climate resilience and economic growth across all countries.
• By implementing the TVET-Industry Roadmap in multiple contexts, this project will demonstrate that ecosystem thinking, multi-level collaboration, and iterative planning can drive global improvements in TVET sector responsiveness and inclusivity, offering a scalable model for ongoing international cooperation.

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