Skills Development: Vocational Education
in the Islamic Countries
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1.3.3. Employability
Employabilitymeans the appropriateness of skills, knowledge and opportunities demonstrated
by an individual to be considered for employment. Tissot (2004) defined employability by
stating that it specifically comprises of two components: readiness for mobility, and readiness
for developing occupational competence. Thus, as a performance indicator, by improv ing
employability we not only increase the skills set and human capital but also overcome the
barriers that keep citizens from accessing jobs, remaining in stable jobs or increasing their
earning (Jayaram, Munge, Adamson, Sorrell, & Jain; Tissot, 2004).
1.3.4. Skills Demand
There is a great need for the state to measure the changing demand and supply in the labour
market as it has a great implication to training of new skills. The increasing dynamic of changing
demand, combinedwith the ageing population, leads toa double squeeze on renewing skills and
competences. Thus it is crucial for the state and institutions to devisemethods to anticipate and
foresee the future demands for skills and competences in labour market and the relationship of
thesemethods todeveloping educational and training profile in VETsystems (Maclean&Wilson,
2009). Hence, by keeping check of the dynamics of changing demands and supply, the
institutions will be in position to direct their efforts towards specific skil l sets demands. This
will help in ensuring good performance of vocational institutions. It is important to note that,
the demand of skills is context dependent, that is, the demand of labour forces varies from
country to country. It may even vary within OIC member countries. For instance, Bangladesh
needs huge labour force in garments sector. On contrary, other OIC member states may not
require this skilled force.
1.3.5. Access to Vocational Education
In order to ensure better access tovocational education, we need toconsider two specific issues:
i) overall accessibility of VET systems and ii) vulnerable group access to VET system. The State
has to ensure that the objective selected to improve the quality of vocational education at both
general level and people from low socio-economic status group so as to ensure that everyone
get access to vocational education (Seyfried, 2007). It’s no doubt that most OIC countries are
either under developed or developing, except a few, who needmore of technical education than
developed countries. Thus the OIC countries have to ensure that the objective selected for
improving the quality of education system in vocational education put into consideration both
the general level and vulnerable group level so as to enhance the level of enrolment among VET
systems.
1.3.6. Other Issues
Much as policymaking at national level for vocational institutions is paramount toensuring good
performance of VET, and the policy implementers should also be put on a weighing scale. To
ensure quality in vocational institutions, both the equipment used during delivery and the
implementers should be genuinely professional and available (Wolf, 2011).
“Awarding Organisations should require that students are taught by properly qualified
staff with industry experience, supported by appropriate and relevant industry
resources, and that students are achieving proper standards”. “(Wolf, 2011, p. 126)