Ecuador’s Ministry of Education is in the process of strengthening Ecuadorian technical schools. One of the mid-term strategies of this process focuses on reorientation of the professional options in TVET. The aim is to create coherency between what students in TVET can study, and what the local production structures and development priorities are.
In this context, the ‘skills mismatch’* becomes an issue of both relevance (the demand for particular skills does not match the supply) and quality (the supply does not meet employers’ expectations). Renewal and creation of new technical professional course options were defined as key processes in addressing these particular issues.
*Skills mismatch is defined as the gap between an individual’s job skills and the demands of the job market.
The supply of curriculum options for technical courses in TVET is elaborated in function of local economic realities.
The project focused on aligning secondary technical education with local economic realities at zonal level.
The project consisted of 5 phases:
- Mapping of national secondary TVET: analysis of the existing technical course options in various fields, and definition of new ones that could fulfil labour market needs, in consultation with government officials, companies and other relevant organisations.
- Representatives from different sectors gathered and worked on curriculums for TVET courses prioritised by MinEduc, who later reviewed and approved them.
- Development of skills-based curriculum for the selected technical fields: these documents were developed jointly with universities, teachers and companies’ representatives.
- Mapping of the relevant economic sectors within each zone, taking into account the existing TVET options.
- Selection and compilation of didactic resources for the newly developed curriculums, development of a virtual library for MinEduc’s website (‘EducarEcuador’).
By the end of the project:
TVET curriculums were identified, developed, contextualised and/or validated according to the needs of different zones.
These curriculums were based on professional profiles elaborated by members of relevant local Chambers of Commerce and companies in the productive areas of Agriculture, Industry and Services.
A virtual educational resources library was compiled for TVET teachers with materials for the new/actualised curriculums.
