Vocational education and training - VET

The world community recognized literacy as an “indispensable foundation for independent learning” in Education 2030: Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action: Towards inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning for all and subsequently in General Assembly resolution 70/1, entitled “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. One goal of the world community is universal literacy. Target 4.6 of the Sustainable Development Goals reflects the ambitious and transformative agenda for literacy action in the next 15 years. UNESCO continues to play a catalytic and coordinating role by supporting Member States in their efforts to create a more literate world, as well as ensuring synergies between different actions, in particular through the establishment of the Global Alliance for Literacy within the framework of lifelong learning.

The international community gathered in Cape Town, South Africa in May 2016, to mark the 20th Anniversary of the South African National Qualifications Framework (SANQF) with the theme, ‘Qualification Frameworks (QFs): Agenda Towards 2030’. Drawing on the Global Inventory of National and Regional Qualifications Frameworks, the event highlighted the significance of NQFs for developing, transition and developed countries in relation to the new Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) on education. Experts agreed that NQFs can serve as a monitoring and measurement tool to help countries cope with global challenges by providing data on enrolment, learning outcomes and completion rates. Issues about how to improve the comparability, transparency and trust in the qualifications were also raised.