ASSIST Managing Director Sreenivas Narayan led a ministerial delegation from Sri Lanka in a study mission to Germany on May 21-27, to understand and learn from the success of the German experience in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and the role of the private sector in this field.
Organized by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and the Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ), the mission is part of a comprehensive “Vocational Education and Training in the North and East of Sri Lanka” (GIZ-TVN) Project. It is an expansion of a previous technical cooperation measure aimed at addressing the inadequate quality of vocational training education and lack of needs orientation on TVET in Sri Lanka.
The delegation was composed of Ministry Secretaries, Chairpersons of governmental institutions, and TVET Education Specialists. They visited and met with German ministries, chambers of commerce, TVET providers, and selected private companies.
According to GIZ, vocational training centres in the former conflict regions of the North and the East of Sri Lanka still lack the resources and competencies to develop and expand required vocational training opportunities. The centers are unable to provide either the necessary quantity or quality of adequate training programs geared to the needs of the economy. Moreover, the training personnel in the VTCs do not have adequate technical experience and capacities.
Since the implementation of the GIZ-VTN project, measures have been put in place to effectively respond to the TVET challenges in those regions of Sri Lanka. To date, the project has been supporting 15 vocational training institutions in improving their training courses. The Sri Lanka-German Training Institute (SLGTI) was established in July 2016 as the hub of the network of vocational training institutions.
Learn more about GIZ-TVN here: https://www.giz.de/en/worldwide/18415.html.
