Skills Development: Vocational Education
in the Islamic Countries
30
that VE produced skilledmanpower whichwill reduce the unemployment rate of any country in
the world. The skill mismatch is also found in literature despite having strong relationship
between VE and labour market demand (David &Nordman, 2017). Many scholars in the area of
VE have written a lot about bridging the gap between VE and labour market in different parts of
the world, emphasizing on the critical factors that are responsible. Therefore, skill mismatch is
an imperative issue, which needs to discuss in this section. The overall economic development
all over the world depends on the teeming youths, who are well skilled, competent and
professionally capable in different areas of specialization. This review is aimed at finding those
critical factors that could be responsible for bridging the gap between VE and labour market.
In the literature, different studies identified vocational skills (the skills which are linked with
employment) in diverse nature. For instance, Jayaram and Engmann (2017) identified three
broad categories of vocational skills:
a) Technical skills
b) Cognitive skills,
c) Non-cognitive or soft skills
Some other studies reported skills in another names. For example Rus, Yasin, and Rasul (2014)
considered skills as “Employability skills” which constitute of three essential components
namely knowledge, skills and attitudes that are required for 21 st century workplace. Skills can
further be divided into following sub-categories:
 Individual skills (communication skills, respect, computer skills and cultural skills),
 Skills covering individual reliability (individual management, ethical, and vocational
maturity)
 Economic skills (problem-solving skills, learning skills, employability and career
development skills).
 Group and organizational effectiveness (interpersonal skills, organizational skills,
negotiation skills, creativity, and leadership). (Rus et al., 2014, p. 2)
However, the required skills that is discussed in the literature for the 21 st century are not widely
dispersed. Different studiesmay name themdifferently but in a broader perspective, most of the
skills are linked and connected. Therefore, this study proposes three broad skills, which are in
alignment to the recent study by Jayaram and Engmann (2017); Jayaram et al. (2017).
Table1.5: Types of Skills in TVET sectors
Technical skills Technical skill is that abilitywhich is linked with specific task
performance. Apprentices should have ability to perform specialized
tasks or carry out a job linking with labor market (technical
role/operating a tool).
Cognitive skills Cognitive skill is that which is linked with brain (knowledge).
Apprentices should have ability to understand complex ideas, recall the
facts, solve abstract problems, and overcome difficulties by thinking
and so on.
Non-cognitive or
soft skills
Non-cognitive skill is that which is linkedwith behavior (human life).
Apprentices should have ability to deal withmultiple factors which are
not connected with other two skills. It is combination of having
multiple traits such as leadership, communication, emotional and other
behavior related attitudes.