TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) is education and training that provides the necessary knowledge and skills for employment. It uses many forms of education including formal, non-formal and informal learning, and is considered to be a crucial vehicle for social equity and inclusion, as well as for the sustainability of development. TVET, together with literacy and higher education, is one of three priority subsectors for UNESCO in its work to foster inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all.
The term 'Technical and Vocation Education and Training' or TVET was officiated at the world congress on TVET, which took place in 1999 in Seoul, Republic of Korea. At this event, it was decided that TVET was an effective title that was broad enough to incorporate other terms that had been used to describe similar educational and training activities, for example, Workforce Education (WE), and Technical-Vocational Education (TVE). Therefore, the development and definition of TVET is one that parallels other types of education and training, such as Vocational Education; however, TVET is likewise used as an umbrella term to encompass education and training activities that describe the field.
The decision in 1999 to officiate TVET led to the development of the UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training in Bonn, Germany.
One of the main reasons that TVET, particularly secondary TVET, often appeared unattractive to learners in the past was its relative isolation from other education streams. In most countries of the world, TVET was widely perceived as a ‘dead-end’ stream. Positive steps were taken to reduce the segmentation of education and training, and to address institutional barriers that restricted TVET learners’ options and choices to move vertically to higher levels of learning, or horizontally to other streams. Policy-makers have introduced forms of hybridization, and some of the traditional distinctions between TVET and ‘academic’ education streams have been blurred. Maclean and Pavlova described a trend towards hybrid programmes, and often to more hybrid institutions that incorporate aspects of both ‘academic’ education and TVET. This has been termed the ‘vocationalization of secondary education’. A similar process can be observed, to some extent, at the tertiary level.