What if every classroom were also a workshop, every exam a life skills test, and every graduation a gateway to employment? Ethiopia is showing what this future could look like. As the first African country to fully integrate Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) into general education, Ethiopia is reshaping how a generation is prepared for the workforce.
The Youth Employment and Skills – Pan-African Coalition for Transformation (YES-PACT) convened a virtual policy learning session spotlighting Ethiopia’s innovative approach. The event gathered educators, policymakers, and TVET leaders from six African countries to examine what Ethiopia’s bold reforms could mean for inclusive education and youth employment across the continent.
A Bold New Model for General Education
Ethiopia’s decision to eliminate the traditional divide between academic and technical education was central to the discussion. Genene Abebe Tadese of the Technical and Vocational Training Institute explained how the country integrates vocational streams directly into Grades 11 and 12. Students now graduate not only with academic knowledge but also with a Level 1 Competency Certificate and practical skills aligned with labor market needs.
This model addresses a longstanding gap: the thousands of secondary school graduates who do not access higher education and enter the workforce without employable skills. Ethiopia’s integrated system offers three post-secondary pathways: university, formal TVET colleges, or direct entry into the workforce.
Yet challenges remain. Misalignment between curricula, shortages of qualified instructors, inadequate infrastructure, and weak career guidance systems could limit the full potential of the reforms. Ethiopia is responding with coordinated curriculum reform, industrial placements for teachers, income generation initiatives at schools, and strengthened public-private partnerships.
Regional Reflections: Lessons from Ghana, Rwanda, and Niger
Cross-country perspectives enriched the discussion, highlighting shared ambitions and contextual differences. Ghana, represented by Osei Kofi of the Ghana TVET Service, has long pursued reforms to elevate TVET’s status. National campaigns, alumni showcases, and career guidance centers have contributed to a remarkable shift: from 47,000 to over 156,000 TVET students in just three years.
Rwanda has adopted a flexible approach by introducing “TVET Wings” into secondary schools, providing students with the option to specialize in technical skills without separating institutions. With over 2,000 certified instructors trained by a national TVET Trainer Institute, Rwanda emphasizes teacher quality as crucial to success.
In Niger, Habou Abdou Batoure emphasized a layered approach to teacher preparation, pedagogical, technical, and psycho-social, to ensure holistic classroom management and skills delivery. The country’s focus on equipping instructors reflects a shared understanding: infrastructure matters, but teachers are the core of the system.
A Shared Vision: Making Skills a First Choice
Across all four countries, panelists emphasized a cultural and policy shift: making TVET a first choice, not a fallback. The barriers are clear: negative perceptions, weak school-to-industry linkages, and limited career counseling, but so are the solutions.
Key recommendations include:
- Embedding structured career guidance in all schools
- Investing in industry-aligned infrastructure and workshops
- Expanding enterprise models within schools for hands-on training
- Running public campaigns to reposition TVET as a high-value path
Speakers agreed that these reforms must be seen as systemic, not standalone. Integrating TVET is not an education tweak; it’s an economic transformation strategy.
The Road Ahead: A Continental Opportunity
As Dr. Amare Matebu of Ethiopia’s Policy Studies Institute noted in closing, Ethiopia’s TVET integration journey is ongoing. The country is not presenting a perfect model, but a working experiment from which others can learn.
The YES-PACT platform continues to provide a space for African countries to share lessons, address implementation challenges, and co-create policy ideas. With a rapidly growing youth population, Africa cannot afford to exclude skills from general education. Ethiopia has offered a glimpse of what is possible. The question is how many others will follow before the continent’s demographic dividend turns into a crisis of wasted potential.
Deborah Delasi Akoto Tamakloe is a Research Analyst at ACET and Coordinator of the YES-PACT program
Original article from ACET
