> UNESCO TVET Asia Pacific Conference, Adelaide March 26 - 28, 2001, Keynote Address by Dr Qian Tang
> Director, Division of Secondary, Technical and Vocational Education UNESCO
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> Honourable Ministers,
> Distinguished participants,
> Dear colleagues,
> Ladies and gentlemen,
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> It is a great honour and pleasure for me to address all the participants at the opening of this significant international conference. On behalf of Mr Koichiro Matsura, the Director General of UNESCO, I should like to express our deep gratitude to our partners in Australia, namely the Australian National Commission for UNESCO, the Adelaide Institute of TAFE and the Australian National Centre for Vocational Education Research, for their support to UNESCO> '> s activities in technical and vocational education by hosting this important event here in Adelaide.
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> It has been pleasant and inspiring for us to work with them in the preparation of this conference. We are certain that our joint efforts will lead to fruitful results and will give impetus to further development of technical and vocational education and training in this region.
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> As you all know, this gathering is an important follow-up action to the 2nd International Congress on Technical and Vocational Education which took place in Seoul, Republic of Korea, in 1999. Professor Ken Wiltshire played an active role before and during the Congress as an excellent Rapporteur-General. I a'm also glad to see a number of distinguished participants today who were also contributing to the success of the Seoul Congress. The Seoul Congress formulated a set of recommendations and helped UNESCO to redesign its global strategy for technical and vocational education and training. It is also an excellent reference document for our Member States when they formulate their national policy on the development of technical and vocational education and training.
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> The Seoul Congress clearly demonstrated that technical and vocational education and training has a crucial role to play, not only in preparing young people for employment and a fulfilling life but also in favouring socioeconomic development of each country and creating social cohesion and integration. We were also reminded that in this era of globalisation, the world of work is becoming increasingly knowledge-based and technology driven. One is expected to update his knowledge and skills for work continuously. To meet the challenge of this rapidly changing demand of the world of work, technical and vocational education and training should be effective, practical and flexible. TVET, as we call it, must be incorporated into school curriculum but, at the same time, it is also vital that continuing education be incorporated within training in the workplace.
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> The Seoul Congress stressed also the extraordinary potential of the new information and communication technology to provide innovative and effective learning modalities for education and training. The ways in which the new information technology can be utilised for the improvement of TVET are to be explored further and UNESCO is committed to working on this issue in the coming years, in cooperation with our partners. In order to use information and communication technologies (ICTs) to facilitate dissemination of TVET related information, UNESCO has just produced a CDRom which contains a wide range of UNESCO publications and documents on TVET. We are also currently preparing a training package on cross cutting skills, including ICTs, which can be used in the future.
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> Technical and vocational education and training is indeed facing new challenges. Knowledge in ICTs, as just mentioned, is being increasingly demanded but there are a number of other issues that should be taken into account. To name a few: the global and competitive economy calls for multiskilled competencies which should be updated; the labour market is becoming more and more borderless and there is a growing need for training of foreign languages and understanding of foreign c> ultures for all learners; with the growing concern about the environmental problems, the integration of environmental awareness, including the use of clean and sustainable technologies in vocational education, should be encouraged.
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> So these are some new challenges which we are facing but we are still facing many old challenges, which can form a long list, as mentioned by Professor Wiltshire. There is a long list of challenges we are facing from the past and now we have new challenges we will have to solve in the future.
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> We should also bear in mind that in this rapidly changing environment there could be an increasing gap between the haves and the have nots. This gap can be found between industrialised countries and developing countries and at individual levels within the country. TVET programs should therefore be made inclusive and accessible to the unemployed and the various marginalised groups, including early school leavers, people with special needs, the rural poor, displaced persons and demobilised soldiers in those post conflict situations. Women and girls also need special attention as they are often under represented in TVET, especially in technical fields.
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> The new technology should not be another driver up in equity but should serve to increase inclusiveness and access.
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> UNESCO is hoping that some answers to these new challenges that TVET is facing, will come out from this gathering. As our Director-General expresses, "Globalisation should have a human face and UNESCO's role is to contribute peace and human development in this era of globalisation". We should therefore not forget that UNESCO's vocation in technical and vocational education and training lies in the common welfare of mankind and TVET should equip people, as the Delors Report mentioned, to learn to be and learn to live together.
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> The Asia Pacific region is a vast region and is perhaps the most diversified one. On the one hand we see the outstanding technology progress, including the ICTs, which gives a thrust to the further elaboration of TVET programs in some countries. On the other hand we see considerable disparities in national capacities to improve their TVET programs. Indeed, effective north-south and south-south partnerships are being formed in this Asia Pacific region and hopefully the successful experience will be shared during this meeting.
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> We are also fortunate to have some representatives from other regions of the world and we should also be able to benefit from their experiences.
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> Lastly, I am delighted to announce to you that the UNESCO International Centre on Technical and Vocational Education and Training has recently been established in Bonn, Germany, and is about to become fully operational. One of the tasks assigned to our new Bonn Centre is to technically support the international UNEVOC network. We are also hoping to strengthen national cooperation and regional cooperation.
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> In this regard, I am honoured to inform you that Adelaide Institute of TAFE and the NCVER in Australia are to join us as a regional centre of excellence for technical and vocational education in the Pacific region, and that last night agreement was signed, as witnessed by all of you here, between UNESCO and these two Australian institutions. It is the second regional centre of excellence appointed after the Korean Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training, KRIVET, in the Republic of Korea, which will work for Asia, and they are both expected to take a leadership role for favouring regional cooperation in the future.
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> The UNESCO Headquarters, our Bonn Centre, and UNESCO field offices in the region, will do their best to support these regional centres in their networking and program activities implemented at regional and/or subregional levels. I am very positive that in the next several days there will be a valuable exchange of views and ideas to inspire and further strengthen the network of policy makers, professionals and researchers of technical and vocational education and training in this region. >
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> Again, on behalf of the Director-General of UNESCO I wish you a good stay here and every success in your endeavours for this international conference.
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> Thank you very much.
> http://www.tafe.sa.edu.au/institutes/adelaide/unevoc/2001conf/downloads/tang_paper.doc
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