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The Education For All (EFA) Goal No. 3 emphasises that the learning needs of all young people and adults should be met through equitable access to learning and life skills programs. In the countries of South Asia, about 22 per cent of the people are in the age group of 11-20 years and out of those about 50 per cent have either never attended school or dropped out. In the context of the above, this conference was planned by Plan India with UNESCO New Delhi with the objective of contributing to the thinking on this EFA Goal, using the experiences and learning of existing governmental and non-governmental efforts in the South Asian Region. Participants came from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Bhutan and at the conclusion of the conference, prepared a set of recommendations. The presentations for the conference were organized around the following themes: inculcating life skills amongst adolescents; basic education for out of school adolescents; gender equity and empowerment; favourable environments, safer spaces and freedom from exploitation; democratic participation: engaging with adolescents on issues related to governance and accountability; adolescents’ sexuality, reproductive health and HIV/AIDS; holistic programs for cross cutting issues; and challenges of employability.

The contents of the report are: Overview article: the status of adolescents in South Asia; Report of the conference: responding to the education and development needs of out of school adolescents: experiences of South Asian countries; Selected best practices: Doosa Dashak: CCT engagement (the Indian experience) / Anil Bordia and Shubhangi Sharma; Muktangan the Open Courtyard / Deep Purkayastha; Breaking the cycle of poverty for women: Empowering Adolescents for Social Transformation (EAST) / Ehsanur Rahman; Kishori Chitrapata (KC): empowering adolescent girls through ICTs / Gurumurthy Kasinathan; Responding to the needs of out of school adolescents: experiences in South Asian countries / Havovi Wadia; Promoting rights based actions for adolescents in India: a comprehensive sexual and reproductive health programme in vulnerable areas of West Bengal and Jharkhand / Indrani Bhattacharya; An inclusive education programme for [out of school adolescents] OOSA: lessons from Sri Lanka / Kamal Hearath; Empowering adolescents to adopt safe sexual behaviors using Theatre in Development / Madhura Dutta; Vocational training for adolescents / Murali; Project Prerana for out of school adolescent girls in Bikaner, Rajasthan: a journey towards empowerment through education / Neelima Pandey and Rameshwar Lal; Breaking the poverty cycle of women: empowering adolescent girls (boys) to become agents of social transformation / Quratulain Bakhteari; Responding to the needs of out-of-school adolescents / Rajani Nair and Gouran Lal; Child Domestic Worker Project, West Bengal / Sanjeev Rai and Ritesh Datta; Pathways to empowerment of adolescent girls: insights from the UNESCO pilot project ‘Empowering adolescent girls to become agents of social transformation’ / Sayeeda Rahman; Education of adolescents in the tribal areas of Jharkhand / Shubhra Dwivedy; The capability approach and the education of adolescent girls: a case study from Rajasthan / Shushmita Dutt; Annexures: Agenda of the conference; List of participants. Show less

The South Asian countries share many similar characteristics, in their political, societal and cultural, DNAs. One common feature is that these countries experienced a rapid expansion of their higher education sector in recent decades. This is matched concurrently by the region’s strong economic growth resulting in higher demand for skilled labour. How the South Asian countries, in particular Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, responded to this ‘demand explosion’ is unique to the region. They fostered the growth of an affiliating colleges system whereby many affiliated colleges were allowed to be established and expand to cater to this demand. Today, the affiliated colleges in all four countries enroll a significant proportion of students pursuing tertiary education. Coupled with weak supervisory and monitoring capabilities in the affiliating universities and government authorities, it is hence not surprising that the affiliated model is widely regarded as the ‘weakest link’ in the higher education sector. Recommendations are made to uplift the overall quality and capabilities of these institutions. These are shaped around four pillars: colleges (foster growth and capacity building of existing colleges and ‘graduate’ ready institutions to academically autonomous institutions); affiliating universities (strengthen effective quality monitoring and services to the colleges); government (reform and increase capacity of regulatory and quality assurance agencies); and the overall stakeholder group (increase transparency to increase accountability).

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This paper presents evidence on intergenerational occupational mobility from agriculture to the nonfarm sector using survey data from Nepal and Vietnam. In the absence of credible instruments, the degree of selection on observables is used as a guide to the degree of selection on unobservables, a la Altonji et al. (2005) to address the unobserved genetic correlations. The results show that intergenerational occupational mobility is lower among women in both countries, and is lower in Nepal compared with Vietnam. In the case of Nepal, strong evidence favors a causal role played by the mother's nonfarm participation in the daughter's occupation choice, possibly because of cultural inheritance in a traditional society.

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This paper examines how Nepal's 1996-2006 civil conflict affected women's decisions to engage in employment. Using three waves of the Nepal Demographic and Health Survey, the authors employ a difference-in-difference approach to identify the impact of war on women's employment decisions. The results indicate that as a result of the Maoist-led insurgency, women's employment probabilities were substantially higher in 2001 and 2006 relative to the outbreak of war in 1996. These employment results also hold for self-employment decisions, and they hold for smaller sub-samples that condition on husband's migration status and women's status as widows or household heads. Numerous robustness checks of the difference-in-difference estimates based on alternative empirical methods provide compelling evidence that women's likelihood of employment increased as a consequence of the conflict.

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The Asia-Pacific countries are in various stages of socio-economic development. Geo-political factors affect the pace of development of the countries in the area also referred to as the Colombo Plan region. The importance of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in the efforts to improve the quality of life of its people is a common theme in this book. The book contains 20 articles by TVET experts and practitioners as well as policy makers. They provide a comprehensive account of the respective TVET problems and issues in the countries included. Both macro and micro views of TVET are covered, underscoring its current status, emerging trends, best practices and challenges faced by individual systems. The experiences shared can be models of ‘systems that worked’, learning from them and ‘avoiding the pitfalls’. They further demonstrate that ‘no one solution fits all’ when addressing the range of challenges and concerns, the resources required and the preferred mindset when implementing TVET reforms.

Abstract from publisher’s website.

The contents are: Section one, ‘The emerging TVET landscape in the Asia-Pacific region’, contains: Emerging trends in TVET in Asia and the Pacific region: CPSC’s response / Shyamal Majumdar; Training of TVET teachers and teacher-trainers in the Asia-Pacific region / Chiranjib Kumar Basu; Emerging trends and challenges of TVET in the Asia-Pacific region / Bernardo Adiviso; Skills training and inclusive development / Rajat M. Nag; Section two, ‘TVET systems, emerging challenges and trends in TVET: country perspectives’, contains: Afghanistan / Fazel Ahmad Bahrami; Bangladesh / MD. Abul Bashar; Bhutan / Sangay Dorjee; Fiji / Matelita Lewadua Rauca; Japan / Hidetoshi Miyakawa; South Korea / Jang Chang-Won; Malaysia / Imran Bin Idris; Maldives / Mariyam Noordeen; Mongolia / Regsuren Bat-Erdene; Myanmar / Kyaw Htin Si Thu; Nepal / Shiva Shankar Ghimire; Pakistan / Mohammad Riaz; Papua New Guinea / Michael Tapo and Pedro Cortez; Singapore / Glen O’Grady; Sri Lanka / Hewa Katupothage Geethasena; Thailand / Siripan Choomnoom. Show less

The objectives of this conference were to: (1) showcase the establishment and implementation of a National Vocational Qualifications Framework (NVQF) and to share the experience of Sri Lanka with countries in the South Asia and Southeast Asia region; (2) analyse the key implementation issues of the NVQ system and the benefits of NVQF to Sri Lankan industry; (3) take examples of advancements in qualification systems and best practices in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in high income and middle income countries for further improvement; and (4) make employers and human resource agencies of Sri Lanka and abroad aware of the Sri Lankan TVET system that provide quality assured competencies at certificate, diploma and degree levels. Presentations: International trends in technical and vocational education and training [key note address] / Sungsup Ra; Technical and vocational education pathways in Australia / Judith Uren; School to work transition: whether and how to vocationalize secondary education / Sofia Shakil; Key reforms in revitalizing technical and vocational education training (TVET) in Malaysia / Pang Chau Leong; Canada has strong participation in its TVET programming through community colleges that work closely with the private sector: how does that work? / James William Knight; Sweden: career guidance for improved efficiency and effectiveness of TVET / Klas Tallvid; National strategy on technical and vocational education and training (tvet) provision for vulnerable people in Sri Lanka / Ajith Polwatte; TVET strategy of India for greater access to young population and improvement of relevance through Sector Councils / Sharda Prasad; Labour market analysis and human resource demand forecasting in developing economies / Paul Comyn; Human resource demand forecasting: Sri Lankan experience / Janaka Jayalath; Labour migration: Sri Lankan experience / Mangala Randeniya; Concepts, development and implementation of National Vocational Qualification Framework (NVQF) of Sri Lanka / T. A. Piyasiri; How national competency standards and assessment meet the expectation of industry / T. P. K. Perera; Role and accountability of university of vocational technology in tvet sector in Sri Lanka / D. D. Wijesinghe; Implementation of NVQ at certificate level: critical issues and lessons learnt / W. D. Fernando; Implementation of NVQ Level 5 and 6 at the colleges of technology / Chitral Ambawatta; How does [Accredited Training Providers' Association] ATPA influence the society in implementing the NVQ system among the youth / Neil Bulathsinhala; NVQ implementation by [nongovernment organisation] NGO vocational training providers in Sri Lanka: experience and lessons learned on use of employment/income tracer studies / Ingrid Knutson; How the industry and commerce view the establishment of NVQ in Sri Lanka / Thusitha Tennakoon; The true story of capability development at Coca-Cola: Sri Lanka shows how the industry benefited from the NVQ / Amali Ferdinandes; Regional overview of TVET and key issues / Paul Comyn; TVET reforms in Pakistan / Abdul Wahi Uqaily; TVET developments in Bangladesh / Abul Kashem; TVET reforms in Nepal / Chandra Bhakta Nakarmi; Experience of TVET reforms and NVQF in Bhutan / Sangay Dorjee. Show less

When it became clear that existing literacy efforts would not be enough to enable some countries to reach [Education for All] EFA Goal 4 (a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy), UNESCO launched the Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE, 2006-2015). Thirty-five countries with literacy rates below 50 per cent and/or a population of more than 10 million youth and adults without literacy competencies were invited to participate. UNESCO Bangkok and the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) conducted a formative mid-term evaluation of LIFE implementation in the 9 LIFE countries in the Asia-Pacific region [Afghanistan, Bangladesh, People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea]. The major objectives of the evaluation are to: assess progress of achieving the EFA literacy goal of 50 per cent improvement in adult literacy, elimination of gender gaps in education, and equal opportunities in access to education as they contribute to EFA and [Millennium Development Goals] MDGs; review country experience in implementing LIFE and to analyze its impact on policies and strategies adopted by the countries to achieve the literacy goals; identify innovative approaches, lessons learned and shortcomings/gaps in the implementation of LIFE that will inform the way forward; and formulate recommendations on how LIFE can make a difference in the 9 LIFE countries during implementation of the second half of the initiative and how best UNESCO can render support. This evaluation is therefore a mid-term formative evaluation which aims at reviewing what happened and learning lessons from the past five years (2006-2010) of LIFE implementation in Asia and the Pacific, in order to inform LIFE actions in the coming five years, 2011-2015. The evaluation methodology included a desk study of existing documents, information collection through questionnaires, review of relevant cases, report preparation, participatory review and finalisation. Show less

The last two decades have been marked by much political tumult in Nepal, with many constitutional amendments and changes of government. More recently, the transformation of Nepal to a federal republic in 2007-08 has altered the nature of politics in the country, though political instability remains. Economic growth has been slow in comparison with neighbouring countries, with [gross domestic product] GDP growth under 4.5 per cent [per annum] p.a. between 2001-02 to 2009-10. Given an expanding population, average income per capita has risen at a sluggish two per cent p.a., and is the lowest in South Asia. Though remittances from emigrants have injected resources into the economy, the poverty incidence remains high with 30.8 per cent of the population living under the national poverty line. Since unemployment ranks at only 2.1 per cent, the main contributor to the high poverty figure has been working poverty, that is the lack of productive employment. The present study offers an employment diagnostic analysis of Nepal. The overall objective is to understand the deficiency of productive employment and to identify critical constraints to inclusive and sustainable growth. The study thus aims at coming to a broad understanding of where the challenges to productive employment lie in Nepal in order to aid further policy advice.

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In the Asia-Pacific region, the Community Learning Centre (CLC) has emerged as a viable model for the delivery of basic literacy and lifelong learning opportunities for adolescents and adults. The UNESCO CLC Project was launched in 1998 within the framework of the Asia-Pacific Program of Education for All (APPEAL). As of 2009, UNESCO's CLC programmes have been introduced in more than 23 countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The central feature of the CLC model is the emphasis laid on active community involvement in designing the organisational structure, formulating the curriculum and delivering the programmes. Seven countries are involved in this study, namely Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines and Thailand. The specific objectives of the studies are: (a) to analyse the nature and means of community participation and identify good practices or models of CLCs which demonstrate community ownership; (b) to study the state of balance between community involvement and external support and intervention, and the implications for the sustainability of CLCs; and (c) to identify key issues in community participation and ownership, and explore effective strategies for future action at regional, national and CLC levels. On the completion of the studies, APPEAL organised a forum to discuss the results. Contracted parties revised their reports and UNESCO set about their dissemination. This report is one outcome. It provides a synthesis of the seven country reports and details the main features of each of them.

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