Many ASEAN countries are facing some difficulties in responding to the skills needs of their workforce in a time of increasing globalization, new technology and changing patterns of work. One of the challenges is that training programmes are often out of date and there is a mismatch between the needs of the workplace and courses currently offered. The lack of collaboration between training institutions and enterprises to identify skills needs that match the demand of the industry.

The promotion of effective private-public partnership (PPP) has long been a priority of ASEAN in relation to training, finance, ICT and many other areas. During the ASEAN Senior Labour Officials Meeting (SLOM) Working Group in May 2009, Thailand proposed a seminar to discuss public-private partnership in relation to skills development. The Department of Skill Development, Thailand has requested technical assistance from the Regional Skills and Employability Programme for Asia and the Pacific (SKILLS-AP) on this particular issue.

Objective

To discuss and promote the concept of public private partnerships, a workshop will be held in Thailand on 15-16 December 2009 with tripartite representations from the ten ASEAN countries.

‘The main purpose of the workshop is to share information and examples of successful Public Private Partnerships which enhance and support skills development in ASEAN countries’.

Various issues will be addressed in the workshop such as :

• Developing effective partnerships between employers, workers and government to reduce the mismatch between training and employment.
• Partnerships to improve the status of TVET ; and
• Partnerships to make workplace learning more effective and efficient.

Programme Structure and Methodology

The workshop will be organized in a number of technical sessions, comprising introduction of materials, case studies from participating countries, panel discussions and small group discussion sessions. A site visit will be organized for participants to a company in Thailand for their public-private partnership arrangement.

Prior to the workshop, each government representative will be asked to work with workers’ and employers’ representatives to identify two good examples of PPP’s in their country that “Enhance and Support Skills Development”. The examples should describe the key features that make these partnerships effective. It might include the reasons that they were set up, how they operate, any problems encountered in sustaining an effective partnership.

During the workshop, each country will be given ten minutes to give an brief outline of these examples. Consequently each country should provide a ten minute PowerPoint Presentation covering these two examples together with a brief written description of the activities.

At the end of the meeting, the three groups (workers, employers and governments) will be asked to formulate recommendations about ways in which each group can promote PPP’s for skills development amongst their colleagues and to identify activities that can be developed or trialled within each of the ASEAN countries.