medium enterprises (SMEs). The qualifications framework needs to be updated, with standards and competencies that reflect changing labor market demand. Examples of national training authorities can be found in Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The fragmented governance has made the TVET system less efficient to manage.

Vocational education needs to acquire greater market relevance through closer private sector involvement. The development of a National Qualifications Framework for schools should be considered. Public-private partnerships to foster enterprise leadership in curricular design, delivery, and practical training opportunities have been used in other countries, such as the Meister Schools in the Republic of Korea and the German apprentice system. China has a quality assurance and accreditation system set up, but it needs to be updated to ensure relevant and reliable standards for quality improvement. Occupations and the associated competencies have been changing rapidly and curriculum and standards require inputs from the industries to stay relevant. In addition to outdated standards, the following challenges are identified as impeding factors for the training to stay relevant: teachers typically lack industry connection and therefore are not equipped with most up-to-date technical knowledge; pedagogy tends to be teacher oriented rather than student centered, making students less likely to actively engage during training process; and facilities tend to be outdated, constraining students’ acquisition of hands-on experience.

Successful systems require a high degree of coordination and partnership between government agencies and the private sector, as well as giving the demand side—businesses and individuals— a strong voice in determining training policy. The government should provide the oversight by monitoring data on program quality, encouraging autonomy and accountability, and ensuring efficiency and results orientation in government financing. Building demand-side buy-in—from employers—is a key challenge. The United Kingdom and some European countries provide useful insights for setting up sector employer councils, while East Asian countries have established independent apex training authorities, such as Singapore’s Institute for Technical Education, with strong partnerships with employers and other stakeholders.

Vocational education needs to gear more toward preparing workers for entrepreneurship. This begins with course offerings, which only recently started incorporating entrepreneurship and core business skills training that are directly relevant for self-employment, management of small enterprises, and services. For example, these skills encompass costing, pricing, preparing financial statements, keeping business records, project management, marketing, sales, and preparing business plans, among others. Promising programs in Korea and other countries are introducing entrepreneurship, work readiness skills, and experiential applied teaching methodologies in secondary schools in developing new TVET curricula with a focus on skills for self-employment.

# Challenges for the academic track

Education incentives for the academic track are strongly driven by university entrance exams (discussion draws from King and Rogers [2014]). Such exams are common in East Asian countries, including Japan and Korea, where students have historically scored high on international assessments, such as the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test. The school exam system has been criticized for creating strong incentives for students and teachers to focus on academic or even testing skills, rather than on problem-solving, curiosity, or creativity. In fact, a common view is that, compared with other leading systems, East Asian education systems often inhibit creativity and emphasize rote memorization. However, the OECD’s assessment of 39