ASEM Symposium on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (ASEM TVET Symposium)
Jan Ebben
Photo Credits: Tobias Bohm/DAAD
From 27 to 28 February 2012, Germany hosted the ASEM 1-TVET Symposium on national qualification frameworks. The event was organised in Berlin by the ASEM Education Secretariat and BIBB's Department for Internationalisation of Vocational Education and Training. The symposium offered a comparative Asian-European perspective, and explored the development of NQFs between the conflicting demands of education and employment. This particular aspect featured strongly in the keynote addresses which were delivered by Madlen Serban (European Training Foundation, David Raffe (University of Edinburgh), and Shyamal Majumdar (UNESCO-UNEVOC). The keynotes were followed by three working sessions which explored similarities, differences, and good practice in what were called the "demand", "development" and "decision & implementation" phases of NQFs across the two continents. The concluding round table discussion addressed the question "Will NQFs bring Asia and Europe closer together, increase education and/or work mobility, and support conversion of systems?" The round table included experts: Yufeng Liu (CIVTE), China, Dr. Paryono (SEAMEO VOCTECH), Brunei, Reinhard Nöbauer (BMUKK), Austria, and Stavros Stavrou (formerly CEDEFOP), Thessaloniki.
The participants emphasised the important role of NQFs as a tool to translate levels and qualifications between systems, to enhance transparency and to support mobility. The inclusion of informal and non-formal learning into frameworks remains an important issue and represents the main theme of the next symposium. This will be hosted by Vietnam in late 2012 or early 2013. A full documentation of the TVET ASEM Symposium is available at http://www.asem-education-secretariat.org/en/19505/
*ASEM (established in 1996) is an interregional forum consisting of the European Commission, member states of the EU, member states of ASEAN plus Australia, India, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan and Russia. The ASEM Education Secretariat is hosted by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Bonn, Germany.
