Assessing Swaziland’s Technical and Vocational Education and Training System to Improve Economic Growth
Swaziland’s economic growth has moderated over the last two decades and has been among the lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa. The slow growth has exacerbated the serious challenges facing the country’s development, for example, high unemployment, partic...
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/09/26792964/swaziland’s-technical-vocational-education-training-system-improve-economic-growth-assessment-report http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25203 |
| Summary: | Swaziland’s economic growth has
moderated over the last two decades and has been among the
lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa. The slow growth has
exacerbated the serious challenges facing the country’s
development, for example, high unemployment, particularly
among the youth. The demographic shift in the coming two
decades will cause working age population growth to outpace
population growth. At the recent Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) growth rates, job creation will fail to keep pace with
the number of new entrants, most of them are the youth and
current job seekers in the labor market. Although skills
development is a continuing process and most of it takes
place on the job, for young people, foundation skills are
developed in education and training institutions. In
particular, their basic vocational and technical skills are
developed through technical and vocational education and
training (TVET). Thus, whether the current TVET system in
the country can meet the above mentioned expectations needs
to be examined. The rapid assessment provides an overview of
a highly varied landscape of TVET providers. At present,
Swaziland has 70 TVET institutions, 27 are public, 29 are
private for-profit, and 14 are run by NGOs, churches and
communities (private but non-profit). These institutions
offer 415 training programs in 60 areas ranging from
vocational programs such as sewing, farming, carpentry, etc.
to highly technical and professional programs such as
business management, computer programming, education,
etc.The assessment also reveals the fragmentation and lack
of coordination of the country’s current TVET system. Some
principal weaknesses include : 1) Low efficiency of the
system, especially in the public sector; 2) Limited range of
programs; 3) Lack of strong quality assurance mechanisms at
both national and institutional levels; 4) Insufficient
public investment in TVET. From the assessment, it is clear
that urgent attention must be given to the weak alignment
between current TVET provision and labor market
requirements. This is particularly evident in priority
industries of tourism, food processing, manufacturing, and
mining. This report sheds light on potential areas for
policy intervention to improve the TVET system and make it
more effective in helping address youth unemployment in the country. |
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