Skills Development: Vocational Education
in the Islamic Countries
1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report is designed in response to a request made by General Directorate of Foreign
Economic Relations of the Ministry of Development of the Republic of Turkey to analyze skills
development in the OIC member countries through vocational education and to present
recommendations to improve the vocational education and training which will ease the
initiatives towards poverty eradication in OIC member countries. The research report was
constructed from extensive dialogue and consultationswith officials of Technical and Vocational
Education and Training (TVET) sectors, employers, academicians and other stakeholders from
three OICmember countries and alsoaccumulated insights fromdocuments and prior authentic
literature. The findings, recommendations and researcher’s experience will be presented in
Ankara during the 12th Meeting of the COMCEC Poverty Alleviation Working Group. The main
purposes of this study are to (i) analyze the current status and trends regarding the vocational
education (VE) systems and its practices around the globe and within the OIC member states,
and (ii) recommend strategies to improve the current practices of VE systems within the OIC
member states with a special emphasis on students from poor socio-economic background. In
order to achieve the aims of this study, the following research questions were selected:
 What is the current skills level in OIC and how has it changed over time?
 What are the main factors that determine the skills levels of OIC member states?
 What are the efforts to increase skills andwhat are the critical success factors of selected
countries?
 Is there any skill gap between TVET institutions and respective industries?
 How will appropriate skill acquisition lead to the reduction of poverty in OIC member
states?
In order to address these research questions, this study was exploratory in nature that focused
on mixed method approach (quantitative and qualitative) to address the research questions.
This study was based on three contexts- Bangladesh, Uganda and Palestine (Gaza Strip) TVET
sectors and their respective industrieswhere skilledworkers are employed. Participants in this
research were recruited from these three contexts. After careful analysis, the following results
were emerged:
Quantitative research: Based on the field research via quantitative analysis in three countries
(Bangladesh, Palestine and Uganda), the following results are generalised for all OIC countries
which have similar contexts of Bangladesh, Palestine and Uganda.
(i) Current skill level and critical success in TVET sector: The critical success factors of
vocational education in OICmember countrieswere identified via six items (The detailed of each
item is discussed in Chapter 7).
(ii) Government’s initiatives in TVET sector (current practices, initiatives, and success)
were investigated in this theme by means of six items.
(iii) TVET sectors and industrial relationship: In order to find out relationship among TVET
institutions and industries in OIC member countries, ten items were identified in this study.
(iv) TVET and industries linkage and existing gap: In order to find out the existing gap
between TVET institutions and industries, seven items were revealed in this study.
(v) Role of NGO and other donor agencies: The contributions of NGOs and other donor
agencieswere investigated towards eradicating poverty via vocational education in OICmember
states.