Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) activities

At 6.30pm on Monday the 20th of November, 2006, the closing ceremony of the Ethio Skills’99 promises to be an exciting night where three important events will take place, concerning the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET)

• The ‘TVET Blue Pages’ will be introduced to the public. This document is a complete guide of all TVET institutions in the country with details about courses, prices and other relevant information.
• Awards will be given to the winners of each trade. A special prize will be     reserved for the so called ‘Best of the Best TVET Award’.
• TVET students from Ziway will present their designs in a fashion show, choreographed by themselves. Afterwards, the designs will be sold to the public.

During the last weekend (18th – 19th of November, 2006), Ethio Skills’99 brought together 36 contestants from six different regions to compete in making a shirt and skirt (dress making), a website (IT application), a 3-course menu (food preparation), a brick wall (brick laying), a cupboard (furniture making) and in the creation of hairstyles (hair dressing).

During the two days the participants gave a dazzling display of their skillful labor in their fields. The prices will be given and the names of the winners will be revealed at an award ceremony at Hilton Hotel on Monday.

At the same time, during the 20^th and 21^st of November, 2006, the first TVET Financial Symposium will be held at the Hilton Hotel. The symposium aims to include an international perspective before the TVET financing strategy is put into practice. The objective is to benchmark the planned financing strategies against international best practices, to exchange lessons learnt with practitioners from other countries, and to help Ethiopian decision-makers, implementers and stakeholders at federal and regional levels shape their understanding about problems, challenges and opportunities in developing and implementing sustainable mechanisms of financing TVET.

This is a great chance to get involved with the Engineering Capacity Building Program’s (ecbp) activities in relation with these two important dates, pointing to different aspects of TVET reform.