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In anticipation of the [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] ASEAN Integration, especially regarding the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) 2015, it is clear that many aspects have to be considered and integrated in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). Four major thrusts under AEC include a single market and production base, a highly competitive economic region, a region of equitable economic development, and a region fully integrated into the global economy (ASEAN Secretariat 2010). These thrusts encourage country members to collaborate in several areas. The areas that link closely to TVET, among others, are human resources development and capacity building, recognition of professional qualifications, and the integration of industries across the region to promote regional sourcing. [South East Asian Ministers of Education Organisation Regional Centre for Vocational and Technical Education] SEAMEO VOCTECH as a regional centre for TVET in Southeast Asia plays an active role in addressing the three mentioned areas.

This paper will highlight the centre’s roles and initiatives relevant to AEC 2015, especially in the areas of capability building programs for TVET instructors and administrators, its engagement with partners in the mutual recognition arrangements, and initiative in arriving at TVET quality standards. This paper also shares TVET trends, issues and challenges based on the Training and Research Needs Analysis survey completed in 2013. These trends and issues help shape the centre’s programs and services, especially in addressing the initiatives in response to the ASEAN Economic Community.

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Competence-Based Assessment (CBA) is a new approach for assessing pedagogical competence of students in higher education institutions of technology and education in Vietnam. CBA is the process of collecting evidences and making judgments on whether competence has been achieved. CBA does not provide students with evidences to recognize their own knowledge and skills from dealing with real-world problems, but regulate teaching and learning. This research mentioned on a brief literature review on CBA and revealed a status of assessing pedagogical competence in training students to become technical and vocational education and training (TVET) teachers at higher education institutions of technology and education in Vietnam. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to gather data associated with CBA in general and the application of this approach in assessing pedagogical competence of students. This research also gave minor suggestions to strengthen the quality of applying CBA in assessing pedagogical competence of students in higher education institutions of technology and education in Vietnam.

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The creative industries in Hong Kong anticipated a shortage of employment candidates with relevant experience and training. Emerging technologies are transforming current technical and vocational skills. Employees of the future are expected to shoulder tasks that require creativity, analytical skills, problem-solving, and entrepreneurship. This article is a case study of an initiative in Hong Kong to innovate technical and vocational education and training for the information and communications technology (ICT) and the creative industry. The initiative involves a tripartite partnership between secondary schools, industry partners, and Hong Kong Baptist University.

The article first discusses the talent needs of the creative industry and the emerging job opportunities in the Art Tech domain. Based on a skill mapping study, three future jobs, including content curator, business designer, and creative technologist were identified for the Art-Tech sector. The functions and duties of these future jobs were elaborated. It gives the background of the CLAP-TECH Learning Pathway program which is modeled after IBM's Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) education model. The 'CLAP-TECH Learning Pathway' includes two applied learning courses - Tech Basic and Multimedia Storytelling - offered in senior secondary schools with further study opportunities. Industry partners provide out-of-classroom learning in the form of mentoring, curriculum co-development, guest lectures, and company visits. The set-up of the organization within the university system, the recruitment and maintenance of the industry partners, and the program evaluation mechanism was discussed. Students' learning outcomes of the program focus on ICT education and training were used as an indicator of the initial success of the program. Further development of the program and the research gaps were identified and presented.

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Appropriately educated and skilled human resources (HR) are a real asset for a country and can be instrumental in accruing several other assets such as a sound, sustained economy; social development and cohesion; international leadership and suchlike. What can be considered ‘appropriate’ education and training is a question constantly at the centre of local and global debates and discussions. It is also a dynamic phenomenon as what is suitable and desirable today may not be appropriate tomorrow. For example, earlier, education and training prepared a person for a lifetime’s career but now the trend is towards frequent and multiple career changes, part-time and casual work. To remain relevant and meaningful, the process of education has to undergo various transitions, reforms and adaptations even more frequently in the current context. The fast pace of development is even driving ‘established’ set-ups to continuous review and reforms. Regarding technical and vocational education and training (TVET), throughout the world, countries are constantly trying to adapt to a new economic and social order. No country today can prosper in isolation. All are part of a global landscape. The changes, challenges and growth of one affect the other. The latest example is the crisis in Greece. The entire European Union is working to pull the country out of it. Another example is the reported global shortage of skills (HR) in the future while Asia is being seen as a potential hub for the development of competent and competitive HR. At the same time if the much talked about demographic dividend of this region is not suitably cashed, it would be a global disaster. Thus, ‘growing together’ is the key to global peace and prosperity wherein internal, regional and international cooperation is going to play a determinant role. These collaborations must address the issues of skill requirements, international benchmarking of skill standards and competency assessment, comparability of qualifications and suchlike. Moreover, it is essential that such initiatives rise above the paperwork and declarations become functional, responsive and effective.

The paper discusses in detail the Indian experience and experiments with internal cooperation and various international collaborations. Regional prospects are also identified.

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What is required of [technical and vocational education and training] TVET practitioners today is not merely the understanding but the application of 'Work process knowledge', which is considered a major training focus. All functional areas play vitally and are interlinked and inter related. The concept of work process knowledge has gained importance for transformation in nature (Boreham 2002). The passive connection between academia and industry ought to be replaced with an active and strategic engagement. To achieve the transition, it is essential to shift the perspective to a 'many to one orientation', enabling the trainees with multiple information resources, of which only one is the assessor. Knowledge creation becomes integral to new ways of organizing work. It is very interesting to apply the work process based curriculum in the Fashion and Textile design sector in Pakistan. A case study approach is attempted to analyse the application process, impact and benefits of applying the work process based curriculum for Fashion and Textile design sector at STEP Institute of Art, Design and Management. The potential gains are high and it promises to benefit multiple stakeholders, including the trainees, the faculty, directly linked employer, industry and it leads to financial and industrial benefits at macro level too.

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Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), as formal or informal education and training, is geared towards the development of skills that are aligned to the needs of the industry. However, there are mismatches or shortages in the developed technical skills of graduates with the industry's expectations. These are the industry-practice gaps. This study mapped these industry-practice gaps through a thematic literature review of the TVET practices. Moreover, the literature identified solutions for bridging the gaps. Twenty-five pieces of literature were reviewed, and MAXQDA was used to conduct inductive thematic analysis, resulting in the identification of major themes.

The main themes in industry-practice gaps are transversal skills as determinants of TVET employability, mismatches and shortages of technical skills, and administrative support as an integral part of TVET systems. Those gaps can be bridged through curriculum development: impact of teachers and instructions, academe-industry collaboration as work-based learning, and seminars and training towards the demands of the industry. This study recommended that the findings may contribute to a better understanding of industry-practice gaps, which may aid in the development of sound TVET policies and guidelines.

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Since January 2017, the [technical and vocational education and training] TVET Sector Support Program (TVET SSP) has entered a new phase to support the Government of Pakistan in enhancing access, equity, relevance and quality in skills development. In terms of content, TVET SSP is being implemented through four cross-sectoral intervention areas: (1) Policy and Governance; (2) Private Sector Participation in TVET; (3) Capacity Building of TVET Personnel/Human Resource Development (HRD); and (4) Implementation of Reformed TVET. The majority of TVET institutes in Pakistan are currently managed under traditional TVET management philosophy. In order to support the transition of current TVET management approaches to the newly introduced National Vocational Qualification Framework (NVQF), a significant capacity-building initiative was identified at national level. Two national and one international resource persons were engaged as trainers. Significant aspects of the global TVET worldview were incorporated into a three-phase cascaded training structure. This had a phenomenal impact as the majority of participants were either completely unaware or had very little knowledge of the UNESCO TVET strategy, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), social inclusion, and demand-driven TVET. By applying quantitative research methodology, this research concludes by recommending some additions and changes for future TIMT training activities in Pakistan in order to align them with the international TVET community.

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Quality assurance of [technical and vocational education and training] TVET in Korea has been mainly led by the government since 1960s and now this system is sustained by two quality assurance systems: National Technical Qualification System (NTQS), and Private Qualification System (PQS). Since 1973, NTQS has been administered by the [Ministry of Employment and Labour ] MoEL, which is working as a quality controller of TVET in Korea. However, NTQS has unveiled a fundamental limitation in balancing between education and training, and qualification system, even though it has achieved remarkable outcomes in terms of total number of successful candidates. The root cause of the issue was the gap between National Technical Qualification (NTQ) and TVET, and industrial needs, which has caused ineffectiveness of the system. As one of the solutions for this problem, the National Competency Standards (NCSs) were introduced, establishing industry-led TVET and qualification system. In this context, this paper covers strengths and weaknesses of quality assurance of the TVET qualification process, as well as opportunities for and barriers to improving the present quality assurance process in Korea. Additionally, issues related to how quality assurance in Korea should be adapted to respond to regional development are included. Finally, this paper contains the suggestions and proposals for improving quality assurance of qualifications in Korea.

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Standards with a focus on learning and supporting measurable learning processes including their outcome have been under discussion since several decades. In the last two decades more and more standards have been discussed for teacher training for technical education and vocational education and training. Teachers in this area are facing a bunch of challenges worldwide. The reasons for this vary from country to country because of the very different approaches and organization models of teacher training for technical education and vocational training. This situation has prompted some planners to creating standards for whole regions such as Asia, Europe, the United States and so on. This approach is not followed in this article. The concept of standards demonstrated in this article concentrates on teacher training in technical education with a clear link to scientific disciplines at university level in individual countries. Additionally the concept of standards follows a dynamic approach which allows teachers to specify standards for the requirements of quality indicators. Via a bottom-up approach, this concept can be developed for a whole study programme and the quality indicators could be compared between countries and regions.

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It is generally recognized that [technical and vocational education and training] TVET teachers are better suited to impart relevant professional competencies if they themselves have extensive experience in the world of work (e.g., in industry or the trades). In many parts of the world, however, this is not the case, not least because many teachers go straight into teaching after an academic education. For this reason, policy makers have tried to integrate the acquisition of professional experience into the training of TVET teachers.

The following article discusses this topic using the example of Lao PDR, in particular through an assessment of current levels of industry experience of TVET teachers in Lao PDR. The study used mixed methods: a quantitative survey (n = 74) and qualitative semi-structured interviews (n = 9). The article finds that the main reason for lack of industry experience amongst TVET teachers is poor cooperation between training providers and industrial enterprises. The article proposes ways to improve cooperation, so that teachers gain more experience in industry as part of their professional development.

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