Inspecteurs de l’Education Sans Frontières

The Government of the Republic of Malawi has received a credit facility from the World Bank towards the Skills Development Project (SDP). The objective of the SDP is to increase access, market relevance and result orientation of supported skills development institutions in agreed priority areas. The Technical, Entrepreneurial and Vocational Education and Training (TEVET) Authority is one of five participating institutions, and TEVET Improvement Plan (TIP) is part of SDP, and aims at increasing access to employment-oriented skills development programmes in rural areas; broadening the range of market-relevant programmes at technician level in priority areas in partnership with employers and industry; improving the capacity for quality assurance in the TEVET system and conducting impact evaluation to test the effectiveness of alternative interventions. The TIP partners are Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Ministry of Labour, TEVET Authority and TEVET Institutions.   As part of preparations for the TIP there is need to review the TEVET Apprenticeship System. The current apprenticeship system is centrally managed by TEVET Authority who are responsible for recruitment and placement of pre-apprentices to private and public institutions, and coordinating both institution and industry-based training. Annually an average of 1,200 school leavers with Malawi School Certificate of Education are selected for placement into regulated apprenticeship program which account for an average 20% of the college capacity, 80% being filled by trainees on parallel programs which are unregulated. This makes the whole apprenticeship system difficult to manage as a result.   The apprenticeship system has over the years faced a number challenges at both demand and supply sides including management of different parallel national TEVET curricula, management and implementation of assessment and certification processes, delivery of TEVET curriculum, infrastructure development and industry participation. These challenges have resulted in inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of the apprenticeship system that require improvement.