The programme also included a visit to a German-Tanzanian vocational education and training project based in Dar es Salaam. The project is being implemented by VETA, Tanzania’s national Vocational Education and Training Authority. Since 2013, VETA has been conducting training courses on a pilot basis in the electronics, automotive and hotel/tourism sectors, based on the dual system adopted in Germany. Support for VETA’s training courses is being provided by the Hamburg Chamber of Crafts, as part of a vocational education and training partnership funded by German development cooperation.
According to local officials, the primary focus of the project is to better integrate stakeholders in vocational education and training in the country, and to actively involve companies in training. The objective, they added, is to create a ‘vocational training culture’ within companies in order to thereby contribute in the long term to increasing the supply of skilled labour able to meet the needs of the Tanzanian economy.
“Strengthening vocational education and training is one of the key measures needed to boost youth employment worldwide. Germany’s dual system, which establishes a close link between on-the-job training and classroom tuition, can provide extensive experience in this regard”, underlined State Secretary Asmussen. Interest in German expertise in this field is growing steadily, he added, including among countries which are still in the process of establishing vocational education and training systems.
Increasing access to vocational education and training worldwide is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that were agreed at the UN General Assembly held last weekend in New York. On the basis of the Federal Government’s common strategy on international vocational education and training cooperation from a single source, Germany has been providing its expertise on the dual training system to interested partner countries worldwide since 2013. In addition to the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, other ministries to commit to the strategy include, in particular, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Federal Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation, the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Federal Ministry of Health, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology and the Federal Foreign Office.