Foreword

This is a comprehensive report on a significant activity of UNESCO within its International Project on Technical and Vocational Education (UNEVOC). It has been undertaken by UNEVOC Berlin. It addresses a pre-eminent issue facing the world of education today; namely, the essential need for co-operation between educational institutions and enterprises in preparing people for, and maintaining them within, the world of work.

The rate of change within the social, political and economic arenas of the world today demands from us proactive and creative responses. The thrust of the UNEVOC Project is to encourage and give scope to such responses, as they relate to the world of work. One strategy that it uses in this endeavour is to provide for the exchange of ideas and experiences among leaders within technical and vocational education and within the world of work in the member countries of the UNEVOC Project. This document records in detail such exchange of ideas and provides for their dissemination. Further, it addresses the problems and issues relating to such co-operation from the perspective of very different contexts in which they occur.

Co-ordination of effort in this area of human endeavour is essential if we are to avoid unnecessary duplication and the wastage of human and other resources. To assist such co-ordination, the participants in the Seminar, of which this is the Report, reported on relevant developments in their countries and regions; representatives from the international scene added their ideas and experiences, thus extending well beyond the boundaries of the participants' countries.

I am pleased to state that UNESCO has not only taken the "Conclusions and Recommendations" (page 140) into account, but that a number of suggestions have actually been included in the 1996-1997 Work Plan of UNEVOC. Furthermore, UNESCO is about to use the seminar as a model for a similar activity to be organized in francophone Africa in 1996.

May I use this opportunity to thank all participants in the seminar for their valuable contributions. They have enabled UNEVOC Berlin to present this substantial report, thus making the substance and findings of the seminar available to all those who were unable to attend.

I commend the report to you. I believe that it has considerable potential as a resource to guide the perceptions and activities of people whose responsibility it is to integrate, as far as is appropriate and possible, formal and informal education, as it pertains to the world of work, with the efforts of work enterprises, in order to create and maintain an effective and efficient work force.

Colin N. Power
Assistant Director General for Education
UNESCO