NQF inventory Jordan

A key feature of the ETVET ecosystem in Jordan is the proliferation of policies and strategy design, but at the same time, the implementation of these principles is limited.

To date, and prior to the approval of the new HRD strategy, there have been several coexisting strategies that have had an impact on TVET.

The most important one is the Jordan vision for 2025. Jordan 2025 charts a path for the future and determines the integrated economic and social framework that will govern economic and social policies based on providing opportunities for all. Its basic principles include promoting the rule of law and equal opportunities, increasing participatory policy making, achieving fiscal sustainability and strengthening institutions. Jordan 2025 is based on identifying a set of goals that Jordan aspires to, how they can be achieved through certain procedures and policies that will be adopted on the sector level according to a flexible timetable that takes into account the developments on the global and regional levels and how to adapt to those changes.

The second one is the National Employment Strategy 2011–2020 (NES), which preceded Jordan vision 2025. NES put a ‘focus on employment generation: improving standards of living for Jordanians through increased employment, wages, and benefits, and productivity improvements’. (NES strategy, 2007). It promotes amongst others the gradual replacement of foreign workers with (skilled) Jordanians, gives more attention to structural unemployment, and the upgrading of the TVET system.

The National E-TVET Strategy is the national policy most closely related to TVET. It covers the period 2014-2020. It is based on the following acknowledgement:
‘An effective, efficient, competitive, flexible and responsive E-TVET sector – as part of the broader system of human resources development – will re-shape the skills of the labour force and contribute to the development of Jordan’s human capital, address mismatches between supply and demand for labour, provide more employment opportunities for the Jordanian workforce, and support the values of inclusion and opportunity for all Jordanians, particularly youth and women.’ (E-TVET Council, 2014)

Lastly, in September 2016, the government adopted a new Human Resources Strategy to ‘enable the country to meet its goals for sustainable development, which includes the development of the nation in economic, cultural, social, and environmental terms. It will ensure current and future generations develop the skills and capabilities they need to live happy and fulfilled lives, and collectively realise the ambition of a prosperous and resilient Jordan’. (HRD strategy document, 2016).
The HRD strategy recognises that despite many initiatives and strategies implemented “student learning outcomes are lagging and the skills of graduates are not meeting the needs of the economy”. There is no evidence to assess the extent to which the E-TVET strategy has been implemented and has or has not achieved all or parts of its objectives. It is likewise very difficult to say how the HRD strategy builds on the success/failure of the E-TVET strategy and how it will manage to achieve the objectives that the E-TEVT strategy failed to achieve.
 

Various donors and agencies (EU, GIZ, USAID, the World Bank and others) are working in E-TVET in Jordan and both the international donors and the Jordanian Government have a responsibility to coordinate the diverse projects and initiatives to give coherent and efficient support to the reform of the sector. According to donors’ interventions mapping carried out by the Ministry of Labour in April 2018, 36 projects are currently being implemented with a total budget of 223.350.000 JoD (approx. 268M€). The interventions cover the areas of job placement, enhancement of workforce participation and curriculum development and career guidance. The two key target beneficiaries across all projects are women and youth.

Current policies, strategies and action plans for adult training in the TVET sector pay little attention to lifelong learning and the continuing education system. There is no vision suggesting how continuing training could become an integrated part of the TVET sector and which institutional setting would best fit the needs of the labour force and the private sector. Education and training for adults have been neglected and reforms and restructuring have focused on initial training.

The technical and vocational qualifications framework for Jordan (TVQF) was developed in the scope of a former EU project. The TVQF is now being implemented with EU budget support.

In October 2014, the EU and Jordan established a mobility partnership to manage mobility and migration better.

The technical and vocational qualifications framework has four levels.
The proposed descriptors for the planned ten-level NQF are knowledge, skills and competences.
 

Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in Jordan is mainly delivered in the initial vocational education system (IVET).

• Ministry of Education (MoE) develops secondary vocational education programmes leading to Secondary Education certificates. These qualifications are based on educational standards;
• Vocational Training Corporation (VTC), a semi-autonomous agency under the Ministry of   Labour (MoL); develops vocational training (targeting 16–18-year-olds) leading to a VTC occupational certificate. CAQA issues occupational licenses for holders of a VTC certificate after an assessment. The assessment is based on occupational standards;
• National Education and Training (NET), a semi-public body, provides a one-year vocational training programme that leads to qualifications, some of which have been registered by CAQA.

CAQA uses the DACUM method to produce occupational standards. To date occupational standards have been produced for 6 sectors. For 7 other sectors occupational standards are being prepared.

The planned NQF makes a clear distinction between academic and vocational qualifications.
 

Entry to one type of education or another is based on grades, and the pathways from one type to another are very limited. Almost 90% of the students who complete the 10th grade of basic education are streamed on the basis of their performance either to general education (high performers) or to vocational education in the comprehensive secondary schools, while the remainder (low performers) can continue to one of the VTC institutes.

There is no accreditation to allow mobility across the system pathways, and this, together with the low-status image of TVET as an educational last resort, has a negative impact on the demand for TVET.

The rigorous General Secondary Education Certificate (GSEC) examination, or Tawjihi, determines whether students are qualified to go to university, at which public university they can enrol and in which specialism they can major. Without the Tawjihi, students have access only to the VTC, and VTC students are prevented from progressing to any form of advanced studies. Bridging from vocational to academic education is possible through Tawjihi and community colleges, but it works for only a few.

Those vocational education students who succeed in the Tawjihi have access to community colleges, where they can obtain a diploma and may then progress from community college to university. Our very rough estimate is that less than 4% of the secondary VET students are able to bridge the gap and get to university.

Pathways are being opened from TVET to higher education, however: by an agreement between the VTC and the Al-Balqa’ Applied University (BAU) in 2012, graduates from some VTC institutes who pass the Tawjihi can enrol in a two-year diploma programme in a community college, and VTC graduates who do not pass the Tawjihi can still have access to a one-year technical diploma at the VTC. However, this type of bridging at the technician level for VTC students is still limited.
 

The technical and vocational qualifications framework (TVQF) covers all vocational qualifications offered in Jordan. A new NQF covering the whole education system has been designed but not yet adopted.

No legal adoption formalised of the TVET NQF.

While the E-TVET Council includes labour market actors, CAQA’s board does not.

The CAQA currently lacks the necessary staff numbers and technical capabilities to act as a qualifications authority, so capacity-building and financial support is required. AQACHEI is better  equipped in human resources and would be entrusted with the management of the new NQF.

Quality, efficiency and effectiveness in the TVET system are affected by the fragmentation of TVET providers. The sector is characterised by a centralised, top-down approach, with each subsector (vocational education, vocational training and technical education) having bureaucratic systems that seldom work together to improve relevance, quality or efficiency.

• Three accreditation and quality assurance systems are operating within the E-TVET sector: Accreditation and Quality Assurance Commission for Higher Education Institutions (AQACHEI),
• the Centre for Accreditation and Quality Assurance (CAQA) for vocational training and the
• MoE for vocational education.

CAQA’s cooperation with AQACHEI and the MoE towards the establishment of a system of external quality control for the whole TVET sector is essential as part of an overall external quality assurance approach for human resources development in Jordan. However, CAQA falls within the MoL’s oversight and the ETVET Council’s technical operation. To provide greater coherence and independence, by-laws for the E-TVET Council and CAQA are needed to enforce accreditation and standards across all VET providers, including those within MoE and HEAC oversight. The establishment of CAQA is a considerable step towards setting up a quality assurance system in TVET, but for it to play its role in full it needs further resources and political empowerment to coordinate beyond the VTC.
The lack of a system of transparent qualifications and the limited flexibility of the current pathways for progression are persistent challenges. The focus of quality assurance also needs to shift from inputs and control to outcomes and employability for students and the performance of teachers and TVET institutes. The recent steps towards designing a national qualifications framework create an opportunity to reinforce quality assurance and at the same time make it sector-wide rather than divided into three subsystems. (Torino process report 2014).
The CAQA has defined the following steps to increase the quality of TVET qualifications.

• First step: the validation committee is created from the employers from the private sector to validate occupational standards;
• Second step: TVET qualification development based on Occupational Standards;
• Third step: Occupational Standards developed by Sector Skills Committees (these are committees established by CAQA from sector representatives who are also skilled practitioners);
• Fourth step: Each qualification registered on the TVQF will be required to be based on at least one Occupational standard to ensure relevance to labour market demand.
   

Up to December 2017, CAQA had registered more than 60 qualifications in the TVET qualification framework, while AQACHEI has registered 20. Registration of qualifications is one of the disbursement indicators of the current EU programme. Two institutions are in charge of registering qualifications (accrediting programmes): the CAQA for the three first levels of qualifications; and AQACHEI which covers the fourth level (technician).

Mechanisms to monitor the effectiveness of TVQF implementation have not yet been defined.

The TVQF is currently being populated with qualifications. When Jordan revises and strengthens the integrated policy and regulatory framework governing the ETVET sector (as part of the indicators for the EU budget support), the impact of the TVQF for end-users will be considerable. These indicators are not limited to the number of qualifications included in the TVQF but also to the quality of provision (including learning materials, assessment criteria, instruction manuals, equipment, and facilities) and teachers’ professional training and internship in companies.