Dr Julian Ng reports more from Warnborough College’s participation at the World TVET Conference in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. See Day 1 here.
Day 2: 26th August 2015
The second day of the 2015 WORLD TVET conference kicked off with paper presentations at 8am by Dr John Gaal, Dra Marianne Teras and Mr Javier Amaro.
Dr John Gaal is Director of Training and Workforce and development for the Carpenters’ District Council in St Louis, USA. He spoke about his doctoral research into the relevance and importance of professional development, particularly in the TVET area. One of his concerns was that in higher education, teachers often rested on their laurels and stopped practising – relying mostly on past glories and theory to educate.
Dr Marianne Teras lectures at the University of Helsinki, and she spoke of using simulations to learn and develop expertise. Using examples in Finland, she shared the benefits and challenges of using simulations within a learning context. It was also paramount that teachers themselves were competent enough to use such a system.
Javier Amaro introduced the Australian VET system to all present.
After a short tea break, 6 workshops with various themes were held. I chose the group discussing the development of entrepreneurship in TVET. Comprised of four shorter presentations, participants can ask questions if they are curious.
Peter Tomas Dobrilla from Code Blue, Slovenia, talked about partnerships and collaborations as a creative process.
Mr Steven McKee from Labtech International discussed ways of developing entrepreneurship in TVET. He spoke about how institutions could innovate and cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit, not just among their students but in the way they run themselves too. Hear, hear.
Dr Abang Zainoren from UITM Sarawak gave an impassioned talk on the need for a new model of education since the triple helix model (government, students and industry) was no longer adequate. Citing the Cambridge entrepreneurship model, he encouraged institutions to do more within and without to create and prepare the future entrepreneurial generation.
From the government’s perspective, Mr Somasundaram Nagappan of the Malaysian Multimedia Development Corporation said that the initiatives to inculcate an entrepreneurial spirit went as far as working with TVET institutions and awarding bodies to create internationally-recognised programmes and initiatives, piloting these on a small scale to iron out any kinks before rolling these out on a massive scale.
2pm – renowned motivator and best-selling author John Robertson took to the stage to disrupt perceptions and challenge convention about TVET’s biggest competitors. He raised some salient points about the need to reinvent and change or face death through inertia.
This was followed by Vera Jacobson-Lundeberg who spoke about using soft skills to engage with marginalised communities.
3:15pm – the second round of workshops saw me choosing the track on Innovation for Human Resource Development.
Robert Mahlman from Ohio State University spoke about emerging trends in workforce credentialing, and about a new standard that is being planned in the USA.
Ronan Haughey from Ireland stressed the importance of innovation in TVET to meet the needs of human resource development, for jobs which are out there and jobs which are yet to be created.
Rumyana Shalamanova from the RUNI Center in Bulgaria talked about bridging the gap between education and work.
Day 3: 27th August 2015
The last day of the conference started with 4 paper presentations focusing on entrepreneurship and innovation in TVET.
A plenary session involving all key speakers was held before a formal ceremony by the Malaysian Minister of Human Resources brought the event to a close.
I popped up on stage to receive a certificate for Warnborough’s participation in the MySkills fair, said my goodbyes to fellow delegates, and headed back to join a short cultural tour.
It has been a great conference, well organised by the PPKS in Malaysia and IVETA. Looking forward to next year’s world conference in Fiji.
