The Foreign Investors’ Council (FIC) and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) organized a meeting on 5th of April at the Astana International Financial Framework, bringing together international vocational education and training (VET) experts, representatives of Ministry of Education and Science and Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, National Chamber of Entrepreneurs as well as other stakeholders, including representatives of private sector.

The purpose of the meeting was to inform on-going reform efforts of VET in Kazakhstan through knowledge sharing. To this end, the challenges and opportunities for aligning occupational standards development with current and future practice, international benchmarking experiences and case studies of good practice are discussed. 

EBRD’s international expert, Ms. Kate Tetley (People1st), delivered an insightful presentation to illustrate the main principles of industry-led competence based VET and the role of sector skills body. The presentation provided a snapshot of the future skills foresight for the mining sector, bringing concrete examples of national occupational standards by using the United Kingdom example. Ms. Tetley addressed also the issue of how to design a qualification scheme and how to establish and sustain a skills governance system through a public private sector dialogue.

 Ms. Shonayeva Lyazzat, Deputy Human Capital Development at the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs, provided an update on development of occupational standards, highlighting the main challenges and her vision of the work ahead. 

Following the presentations, participants had a fruitful discussion around progress, challenges and opportunities for partnership with investors on development of technical and vocational education. The discussion addressed the future plans to improve quality of teaching staff and material as well as the development of systems for the recognition of qualification and skills certification. 

FIC and EBRD will go on supporting reform efforts and will help strengthening stakeholders’ engagement to support the Government and the private sector in establishing a successful partnership to address skills challenges through strengthening of Kazakhstan’s National Qualification Framework.