UK Prosperity Fund Skills Programme for South East Asia (UKPFSEA)

The project aims to increase national capacity to achieve sustained and inclusive growth through the enhancement of skills development and TVET systems. These systems will offer relevant, quality and inclusive programs that support both industry upgrading and transformation, and improvements in employability, employment and the livelihood opportunities of beneficiaries. The project will target three middle-income countries in Southeast Asia, namely Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Across all counties, the project will support national efforts to facilitate reform at the policy and system levels for broad national impact and sustainability. At the same time, it will ensure impact at the individual level by contributing to poverty reduction and addressing inequality. In short, the project combines interventions at the upstream level (e.g. policy and structure) and the downstream level (training delivery, certification and employment facilitation). While each country component will adopt a tailored strategy to address country-specific needs and goals, all three components will address the broad themes of (i) TVET governance, (ii) alternative TVET financing and (iii) industry engagement in TVET. All three were identified as common critical issues in the countries’ skills/TVET systems. Through addressing these three themes, the project aims to facilitate the development of an equitable, quality, relevant and cost effective TVET system in each country. The enhanced capacity of each TVET system is sought mainly through: (i) improved effectiveness and efficiency of the systems through enhanced inter-ministerial coordination, management of TVET delivery, alternative TVET financing and industry-TVET linkages; (ii) upgrading of the quality and relevance of existing qualifications and capacity of trainers in line with international standards to meet the needs of strategic sectors, high-skilled, and green economy; (iii) inclusive and equitable TVET strategies, and their implementation for increased participation of the unemployed (especially youth), women and other disadvantaged groups, including in SMEs, supply chains and poorer regions, resulting in employment and better livelihoods; and (iv) improved readiness of the systems to meet skills challenges of the future of work. While the focus is on the enhancement of skills and TVET systems and programme delivery, the project will strategically link skills development and industry upgrading efforts through an industry-led institutional mechanism (e.g. Sector Skills Councils), contributing to the demand creation for higher skilled and quality jobs. The project will facilitate dialogue between social partners (employers and workers) to promote the upgrading, utilization and rewarding of skills by drawing on the ILO’s existing network of social partners.ILO’s key value addition is in policy and skills/TVET system development and mainstreaming, with a strong potential to reach large numbers of beneficiaries beyond the project’s life span. This is because the ILO’s approach and strategy embody upstream policy and system reform aimed at developing national capacity and creating enabling environment for the sustained improvement in the quality of TVET. This upstream work is combined with downstream individual-level interventions through pilot programmes to demonstrate how the reformed and improved systems can be implemented. In this context, the project expects to reach approximately 360,000 individuals directly (including approx. 240,000 trainees from on-line maritime vocational English training planned in Indonesia), and potentially millions of indirect beneficiaries through the improved capacity of national systems. The breakdown of the anticipated number of direct and indirect beneficiaries by country are: 38,400/486,575 in Malaysia; 341,904/3,182,500 in Indonesia and 51,685/165,667 in the Philippines.

Project symbol

RAS/20/52/GBR

Admin unit

RO-Asia and the Pacific

Start date

24/10/2019

End date

30/09/2023

Total allocation

4186547

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

3833854

Development Partners

United Kingdom, Department for International Development

Country/Countries

Asia and the Pacific - regional
Malaysia

Outcomes

Outcome 2: Strong, representative and influential tripartite constituents and effective social dialogue
Outcome 3: Full and productive employment for just transitions