Skills Development: Vocational Education
in the Islamic Countries
4
INTRODUCTION
Main Focus: the scope of this section is to highlight the need and importance of vocational education
for the socio economic development process of any country. Vocational education is primarily aimed at
preparing and equipping young people with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitude to operate at
a desired level required by the labour market of any country. This wider aim is linked to securing
immediate employment of young people. In this section we intend to identify how vocational education
has played a key role in areas like poverty eradication, reduction in unemployment rates and social
tension. We also have discussion on how vocational education served as mechanism of maintaining
social, cultural and national identity of a country etc. On this note, countries around the world who have
achieved great progress in their socio economic development through vocational education and training
will be taken as references in support of the points that will be discussed.
Vocational education is regarded as a form of education designed to prepare students for the
world of work in a commercial or technical fields. The course content is mainly practical and
enable graduates to enter the labour force (Ntallima, 2014). On this regard education for the
sustainable socio economic development of any country to be progressive, policy makers must
heed tovocational education and training as their top agenda in establishing educational policies
that seek to eradicate un-employability of youths. “Vocational Education and Training (VET) for
the world of work has been identified by UNESCO Member States as a priority area within
UNESCO’s range of programme activities. This is to be expected since there is overwhelming
evidence to demonstrate that VET can play an essential role in promoting economic growth and
the socio-economic development of countries, with benefits for individuals, their families, local
communities and society in general” (J. M. Fien, Rupert, Man-Gon, 2008). Therefore, due to its
inclusiveness, VET can be considered as the backbone for sustainability of any country’ s socio-
economic development process.
According to Bagale (2015), vocational education can play an instrumental role in developing a
new generation of individualswho will be competent and bewilling to face those challenges in
order to achieve socio economic development. VET advocates for self-reliance for the
disadvantaged and minority people of a country due to its diversity, creativity, relevance and
adaptability in both formal and informal setting. Whenwe talkabout the diversity of VET we are
simply referring to its modes of delivery, the unlimited variety of trade areas it consists of and
its inclusiveness. VET is inclusive because it caters for all sectors of socio economic activities of
a country. It also welcomes people from all levels despite of their social and economic
stratification and academic status.
Importance of Vocational Education in the Economic Development Process of any Country
The ultimate aim of any form of education is to nurture and develop a child or an individual to
be a responsible and useful person contributing tohis/her nation’s growth. Positive progression
and expansion of an economy is one of the aspects to attain and ensure sustainable growth and
development of a country, which will not be possible to achieve without education in general
and VET in particular. In many cases, it has been proven that a country’s economic and social
status is determined by the current status of their VET sectors. For example, many European
countries, Australia, and very recently China are progressing because of their huge skilled
manpower who are working in the industry and thereby contributing in their economic
progress. Therefore when we consider the definition of VET as stated above, we can conclude
that VET is a valid and reliable alternative for empowering youth for employment and poverty