Workforce Development for Implementing Infrastructure Projects

Post-event Statement

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Background

Workforce development is no longer seen as the realm of educational institutions. It is increasingly viewed in terms of a broader system, involving businesses, educational institutions, individuals, and government agencies. Driven by the rapidly changing and highly competitive global economy that puts a premium on skilled workers, many countries are taking steps to better align their workforce and economic development programs. In pursuing this alignment, countries are confronted with the challenge of two systems that operate very differently. Workforce development programs are targeted to individuals and supervised by education or labor ministry. Economic development is focused on business with different policy and funding structures.

With the emergence of knowledge-based economies, it became evident that economic development requires a skilled, innovative, and flexible workforce. The severe skills gaps observed in many developing countries showed that workforce development is about much more than assisting the unemployed and school dropouts. It is essential to produce a workforce with the skills and knowledge that employers need if they are to succeed in a rapidly changing and highly competitive global economy.

When economic and workforce development are well-aligned, economic development officials work closely with their counterparts in workforce development to ensure that both long-term planning and current recruitment and expansion efforts take into account the skills of the workforce. Similarly, workforce development professionals work closely with economic development officials and employers to ensure that their training and job placement efforts are designed to meet the industries' skill needs, especially in implementing large and complex infrastructure projects.

Economic development depends on national productivity which requires a workforce with proper skills, knowledge, and work ethics to match employers' needs. This is a huge task as there are many weaknesses in workforce development systems in many countries. In order to provide a high quality learning experience to students and workers, teaching staff need to be properly trained and also need to update their skills regularly to respond to changing labor market situations and new technologies. This is necessary to ensure that the quality of teaching and learning is uniformly excellent across the sector, with workforce development programs tailored to the needs of individual learners and employers.

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Objectives

The objective of the expert meeting is to update skills and knowledge of technical teachers to effectively meet the demands of learners and employers in knowledge-based economy. The meeting will also review new instructional technologies that will increase learners? retention and skill acquisition, along with policies for workforce development.

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Outputs

• About 25 trained participants in technical teacher training
• About 20 lecture CD-ROMs
• Meeting report

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Participants

25 participants from Cambodia and 14 resource speakers.

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How to Apply

By invitation only

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Language

English and Khmer with simultaneous interpretation

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Responsibilities

Each resource speaker is required to prepare presentation slides with notes (transcripts) for easy translation into other languages. Each presentation will be recorded for further development of lecture CD-ROM that will be distributed free of charge to interested individuals and institutions. This CD-ROM will also be used in distance learning courses.

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Cosponsors

Royal Government of Cambodia, Colombo Plan Staff College for Technician Education (CPSC), German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), National Center for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) in Australia