Overall rationale and purpose
nations are faced with the challenge of improving their human resources to respond to national development needs, global competition, and to rapidly changing worlds of work, technology and economy. High quality initial teacher education is needed to improve the technical and vocational education and training (TVET), as well as further training of teachers who are already in service.
New requirements for teachers can be identified: the main duty of TVET teachers is no longer just to teach, but they have to develop and provide learning environments for their students and apprentices in cooperation with industries, targeted at the industries’ needs, and with the objective to qualify youths to participate in a civil society. TVET teachers are increasingly involved in the shaping of TVET processes and the TVET system according to the needs of society and economy. They also have to assume a growing responsibility for the societal development.
In order to develop the required quality of TVET teacher education, all available resources have to be used, such as the academic excellence of universities in research and development, the knowledge and competence of the economic sectors, and the perspectives that lie in the international exchange of knowledge and experiences. In short, the professionalisation of TVET teachers has to be developed.
Indonesia has taken appropriate steps in issuing the Teachers and Lecturers Law (Law No. 14/2005) and related directives. It now tackles the tremendous task of upgrading a big share of its TVET teachers, which at the same time is developing TVET teacher education at the universities in order to provide new teachers with the required competences already before they enter the service, and to build up national TVET research and development capacities. The First World Congress on Teacher Education for TVET is organised in Indonesia for other countries having the opportunity to learn how to manage the huge requirements of establishing comprehensive teacher training concepts.
The partners of the TT-TVET (The Development of Trans-national Standards for Teacher Training for Technical and Vocational Education and Training with a Multidisciplinary and Industrial Orientation) project, which is co-funded by the European Union’s EU-Asia-Link programme, have taken a further step and developed trans-national standards for the education of TVET teachers as a basis for international co-operation, and included a sound orientation towards economy and labour market as well as the development principle of “shaping TVET”.
The First World Congress on Teacher Education for TVET which is organised by the partners of the TT-TVET project with support of the Ministry of National Education of the Republic of Indonesia will discuss:
- of teachers for TVET worldwide,
- sophisticated concepts for TVET teacher training,
- visions for TVET teacher training which meet the requirements of the societies,
- the TT-TVET project and its impact on national contexts,
- the trans-national standards developed by the TT-TVET partners as well as mutual learning between EU and Asia in teacher education for TVET,
- and challenges for implementing TT-TVET standards in Indonesia and other Asian countries.