Bridging the skills gap in TVET: a study on private-public development partnership in Ethiopia

The nature of global labor markets places new demands on the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector in developing countries. Capacity building programs have become a strategy for governments to increase the standard of TVET. The aim of this article is to analyze conditions for the formation of an intended and enacted curriculum within the framework of an Ethiopian Private-Public Development Partnership (PPDP) in the TVET sector. Data was generated through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and document analysis. The results indicate that the curriculum was geared toward the needs and interests of those industries involved in the PPDP and that greater emphasis was put on developing the intended curriculum than considering situational and contextual (im)possibilities for its enactment. A future consideration when developing curriculum for such a program may be to involve a more diverse group of local actors.