PEFOP’s Missions

The Platform of Expertise in Vocational Training (PEFOP) is a portal launched by the International Institute for Educational Planning’s (IIEP-UNESCO) Pôle de Dakar.

Download the PEFOP presentation brochure

PEFOP’s goal is to support the implementation of revised vocational training policies, by contributing to the mobilization and strengthening of public (government, local authorities and public vocational training bodies) and private (formal and nonformal sector players and organizations, unions, NGOs and private vocational training institutes) actors involved, as well as providing them with more effective tools.

“Revised policies” must be based on public-private partnerships, and:

  • Ensure training is steered according to the needs of the economy,
  • Manage the process of endorsement of skills geared to employment and integration,
  • Provide equity in and access to training, by accepting diverse individual backgrounds, and through the decentralization of supply,
  • Establish lasting and sustainable financing mechanisms.

To achieve its goal, PEFOP supports experimental and innovative approaches to analytical tools and methods, and promotes access to the information and benchmarks that are valuable to stakeholders and encourage dialogue among them. PEFOP also supports innovation, the capitalization of practice and the promotion and pooling of good practices and resources for vocational education.

PEFOP provides support in three complementary areas:

Supporting the Implementation of Reforms

This first component aims to contribute to the effective operationalization of reforms in vocational training policy in African countries embarked on a process of renewal of their current mechanisms.

In the first phase, launched in 2015 with AFD financing, four West-African countries (Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritania and Senegal) benefitted from PEFOP’s early support. The methodology developed in the context of these first support programmes was capitalized in such a way as to be available to other countries sharing the same need.

PEFOP’s support is consolidated in a so-called Programme Contributing to the Operationalization of Reforms (PROCOR) that focuses on the priorities identified by stakeholders in beneficiary countries with the support of the IIEP-Pôle de Dakar, following a participatory analysis of constraints to the implementation of reforms.

A PROCOR is a programme document, combining a set of sector or area action plans to overcome the constraints considered to be priorities by national stakeholders.

Information, sharing and publication of reference tools

This second field of work aims to provide an answer to the need for dialogue and to share experiences in vocational education, among stakeholders and across countries.

For this, PEFOP has capitalized the lessons learned from its support programmes to share them beyond the four beneficiary countries, facilitating access to information on vocational education and supporting the creation of networks among players for them to share their experiences.

Supporting Innovation

This component of PEFOP’s work, complementing the first two, addresses the stake of encouraging innovation and experimentation in vocational training, as well as promoting debate about new approaches and their capitalization.

Practices deemed innovative in the light of progress in vocational education policy will be identified, receive financial support and be publicized.

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