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In recent years, especially since the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, in April 2000, there has been extensive consultation and rethinking about the concept of Education for All (EFA) and what is involved in achieving a basic education which prepares for work and life. As more children and adults receive and complete elementary education, it is important to teach them skills for the world of work that enable them to work in dignity, supporting themselves and their families as well as being respected and effective members of a community.
TVET particularly contributes to EFA goals 3 and 6 as they relate to life skills:
UNESCO has placed increasing emphasis on TVET in recent decades. Two large international conferences in 1987 and 1999 were evidence of the wider brief for TVET, a brief which was formalized in 2000 in a new UNESCO definition for TVET, recognizing its enhanced capacity to emphasise the role of technology in society, including the vocational aspects of that role. The new understanding stresses the importance of non-formal (or non-institution based) TVET for young people in developing countries and particularly the need for TVET to seek actively the participation of those excluded - girls and women, ethnic and traditional groups, refugees, the disabled and former combatants in post-conflict situations.
As part of the Dakar follow-up to achieve Education for All, the UNESCO International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education is uniquely placed to provide technical assistance to developing countries, countries in transition and those in post-conflict situations with particular attention to youth, girls and women, and the disadvantaged. This can be done through a variety of means such as: conducting training workshops at the country, sub regional and regional levels; developing training modules related to key aspects of education for work; training TVET teachers; sharing innovative best practice regarding education for work and TVET; acting as a platform for inter-agency collaboration regarding education for work and TVET; and, strengthening the network of UNEVOC Centres, world-wide. Dakar recognized specifically the need for EFA to include with the literacy and numeracy of primary education the acquisition of life skills which will complete a quality basic education.