The first ‘mentoring partnership’ of the VET Toolbox project is now underway. The VET Toolbox is an EU-funded initiative, aimed at providing targeted expertise to countries to address their skills development priorities in the areas of labour market intelligence, private sector engagement and inclusion. The project is being implemented by four leading European agencies: Enabel (Belgium), GIZ (Germany), LuxDev (Luxembourg), and the British Council.
Facilitated by the British Council, the initial VET Toolbox mentoring partnership brings together Hertford Regional College in the UK, with four colleges in Vietnam: Hanoi Industrial Vocational College, Hue Tourism College, Kien Giang Vocational College, and the Vietnam-Korea Vocational Technology College of Bac Giang. The partnership will run until September 2020 and focuses on building the capacity of the Vietnamese institutions and enhancing their strategies in the areas of private sector engagement and quality assurance, with a view to increasing the relevance of their training offer to the needs of employers. The partnership is being keenly supported by the Directorate of Vocational Education and Training (DVET) in Vietnam, who are working to ensure that the learning it delivers is cascaded to other training institutions across the country.
Elisabeth Watson, Partnerships and Projects Manager at Hertford Regional College said, ‘The workshops we ran as part of the set-up visit to Vietnam earlier this month demonstrated just how positively the four colleges and DVET have engaged with the partnership. The workshops served to challenge participants thinking on self-assessment as part of quality assurance; and equipped those participants with knowledge and methodologies that they can apply in their college contexts. The colleges are now considering impact on the learner as the key measure when evaluating if something is effective and fit for purpose. We’re really excited about the opportunities this partnership presents to help ensure that the training Vietnamese students receive is of high quality and tailored to the needs of the job market.'
British Council’s initial mentoring partnership will be followed by four further British-Council-facilitated partnerships in four countries, to run from September 2020 to September 2021. A call for Expressions of Interest in these partnerships will be announced to the UK skills sector in June on our website. You can also sign up to our mailing list for updates on this and other opportunities to get involved with British Council’s Skills work.