Urgency of cooperation in TVET in conjunction with globalization in economy and diplomacy such as FTA with EU, ASEAN and other countries has been intensified because human resources are the most valuable asset for economic and social development. The Korean government has emphasized the importance of cooperation between Korea and Asian countries and enlarged the Korea’s role to play in TVET development in Asian countries.
Asian countries have recognized the role of HRD to play for national development, poverty alleviation and community cohesion. Thus, they are searching for the role model of HRD which they would follow. The Korean model of HRD would be a prospective model of HRD for Asian developing countries because Korea went through extreme poverty, destruction of Korean War and had to overcome lack of natural resource and becomes a leading country in Asia. Many Asian countries want to share the model of HRD and the experiences from Korea and other countries because they have lots of similarities. However, only little information of Asian countries’ TVET has been available.
Lack of information is the most critical barrier to improve the cooperation between Korea and the Asian developing countries. The TVET policy of government is the centerpiece of the TVET information. Korean government has played governing roles of TVET development in providing framework for HRD development. In most Asian countries, the governments have most valuable human resources and notable abilities to make a difference. In this regard, it is most recommendable to share Asian countries’ TVET policies in order to learn from each other and to make a common ground of mutual understanding.
CEDEFOP of the EU is the center of TVET policy coordination and information sharing among the EU countries. It dramatically increases effective cooperation among EU members. When we look forward the future of Asia which is the engine of global economic development, it is the time we need to figure out how to increase the mutual understanding and learn from each others’ experiences in TVET which increases HRD. In this regard, KRIVET and UNESCO decided to conduct the project which collect the TVET policy data and organize them with comparative perspectives.
We developed the framework of TVET information sharing which would cover the general information and TVET policy issues. It should be compatible to make a comparison among Asian counties. The framework of UNESCO’s TVET policy review was the reference of developing this framework. UNESCO has a plan to make the TVET policy database sooner or later. It was expected to make this paper a part of UNESCO’s TVET database.
This project was conducted as a UNESCO-KRIVET cooperative project. The project manager of this project is Dr. Kim, Young-Saing. Dr. Chung, Ji-Sun, Dr. Lee, Sang-Don, Dr. Ryu, Ki-Rak and Mr. Lim, Young-Sub contributed enormous efforts and ideas as researchers. Local reporters collected data and organized them for this project. Three interns, Ms. Gong, Min-Young, Ms. Kim, Yong-Jeong and Ms. Kueppers, Paula organized the manuscripts which were not in a consistent format. Ms. Jennifer Govan edited the manuscript’s language and checked the references. KRIVET would like to show special gratitude to the researchers, the reporters, the interns, the editor.
This project paper is not an official view of KRIVET or UNESCO, but the researcher’s and local reporters’ opinions and the collection of data.