On 11 and 12 December 2019, the Regional Cooperation Programme to Improve the Quality and Labour Market Orientation of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (RECOTVET) and the SEAMEO Regional Centre for Vocational and Technical Education and Training (SEAMEO VOCTECH) hosted the 8th Regional Working Group Meeting on the Regional TVET Teacher Standard (RTTS) in Thailand. The meeting sought to collectively review the revised Regional TVET Teacher Standard and enhance key competencies in the fields of changing world of work, life-long learning, green skills and vocational disciplines so as to shape competent and qualified TVET teachers.

19 delegates from 6 ASEAN countries, consisting of TVET departments, higher education, standard departments of the Ministry of Education, attended the meeting where the second revision of TVET Teacher Standard was the focus.

Enhancing the vocational competencies of TVET teachers and comprehensiveness of standards, the two German experts: Prof. Dr. Matthias Becker from Institut für Berufswissenschaften der Metalltechnik Leibniz, UniversityHannover and Prof. Dr. Georg Spöttl from University Bremen who elaborated the revised version exchanged their thoughts with the delegates.

Through meeting sessions and small-group work, delegates from Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and the Philippines actively contributed their point of views to the details in the revised version for the region. The comments by the delegates will be used to further enhance the quality of the second revision of the Regional TVET Teacher Standard leading to the final agreed version.

The assessment tools for monitoring TVET teachers’ performance and the guidelines for the concept and linkage of vocational disciplines to TVET teacher education and training were presented at the workshop in order to provide examples to the country for the development of a national standard. Those two guidelines will be incorporated as annexes to the standard.

As a result, the Regional Working Group agreed that the Regional TVET Teacher Standard is a voluntary guideline. The specified competencies in the second revision will enable the responsible TVET departments to create a road map and study programmes to produce fully qualified TVET Teachers. Each country is encouraged to work on its national action plan. Most of the countries enthusiastically completed and subsequently submitted the tangible plans to RECOTVET for further collaboration.

Since the 7th Regional Working Group in 2018, Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia have benchmarked the Regional TVET Teacher Standard with their national standard and have gone through referencing processes on standard contents with the responsible ministries. The Ministry of Education of Brunei Darussalam is currently endorsing the Brunei TVET Teacher Standard (BTTS) which set an example for the region.