**2. Current diagnosis of TVET**

#### **2.1 Organization of TVET**

As a component of the national system of education, teaching, and training, responsible for training the country's children in various skills, and preparing them for different trades to serve different jobs, technical education, and vocational training, belonged on the occasion of the main institutional reforms, sometimes to the Ministry of National Education, sometimes to the Ministry of Pre-university Education and Vocational Training. The entire Guinean education system, described in the National Education Orientation Law (L/97/022/AN of June 22, 1997) has been rendered obsolete by the various institutional reforms that have often affected and reshaped the government structure. Moreover, this law is currently being revised.

This has not failed to affect technical education and vocational training, which, since its creation in 1996 as a ministerial department, has evolved according to institutional reforms, which successively added to it initially the employment, then Work and Employment, before removing them one after the other, then adding them again. The primary vocation of TVET, as defined in the letter of development policy, is to provide the job market with qualified and competent agents, thanks to initial training, continuing training, modernized and efficient learning, and support for the informal sector, the objective being to ensure the mastery of fundamental skills, know-how, attitudes, and behaviors in a context of competitiveness and technological progress, with a view to supporting national development at long term of the country.

The sovereign missions of TVET are defined by a presidential decree which establishes its attributions and its organic framework, namely the design, development, and implementation of government policy in this area. As such, he is responsible for the design and implementation of strategies and programs arising from the Government's main orientations in the area of Technical Education and Vocational Training. As well as the development and monitoring of the application of legislative and regulatory texts relating to the promotion of Technical Education and Vocational Training. By ensuring the adequacy of Training/Employment to promote professional integration and the promotion of employment, by gradually adapting to the emergence of new technologies.

It is also responsible for promoting and monitoring private initiatives in the areas of private technical and vocational education, in particular through the definition of criteria and standards for the creation and opening of private technical and vocational training establishments and ensuring their application. For this, it ensures the updating of the school map on the national territory, and organizes the national examinations for the recruitment of new cohorts and the certification of the training provided, taking into account the Gender and Equity programs at the level of all cycles of education. Technical and vocational education. The details of the organization and attributions of the Ministry are contained in a decree, generally updated after each government restructuring.

It should be mentioned that when this department was created in 1996, the Government had decided to bring together under the same supervision all the providers of vocational training and it is the ministry in charge of TVET which is responsible for it. However, some specific training takes place at the level of other structures in partnership with ETFP. These include, for example, higher-level vocational training

(Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation, Ministry of Functions and Labour, Ministry of Security and Civil Protection, the Ministry of Administration and Territory, and the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.

#### **2.2 Access to vocational training and quality of training**

There is no formal mechanism for orientation toward TVET in Guinea. Learners apply on their own. This sometimes opens the doors to unorthodox recruitment. The information and communication system is essentially limited to radio announcements as well as posters and leaflets on the eve of recruitment competitions. This situation deserves to be corrected by the new recruitment strategy which favors the quality of future TVET learners. Competitive examinations for access to institutions will therefore have to adapt to the types of training and diplomas.

Currently, for schools issuing diplomas from the Professional Aptitude Certificate (CAP) to the Higher Technician Certificate (BTS), the competition essentially concerns general knowledge in connection with the sectors requested. While applicants from Post Primary learning and training centers are admitted on the title to obtain the CQP. With regard to private training institutions, recruitment has always been their initiative. However, since 2020, arrangements for the simultaneous organization of the competition, both public and private, are being tested. This experimentation should go beyond recruitment to harmonize curricula and training standards to standardize certifications.

To this must be added that the conditions for better access to TVET are the availability of efficient and suitable infrastructure and equipment, competent trainers and supervisory staff, and learners. It has become apparent in recent years that the private sector has provided significant support for improving access. However, the Government, with the support of technical and financial partners, has embarked on a vast program to create new technical and vocational education centers, and at the same time as reform the training policy by adapting it more to the needs of the labor market.

At the same time, a policy of taking charge of children who have not gone beyond primary or lower secondary school has been initiated through the creation of learning centers dedicated to the learning of these post-primary children. Also, a framework program for the development of urban and peri-urban crafts has been drawn up with a view to modernizing apprenticeship and promoting the development of the informal sector. This should contribute to the improvement of traditional training systems and the services of master craftsmen, through reference systems and training modules. It is also necessary to set up a system of evaluation and certification in a traditional apprenticeship with a view to issuing a certificate, thus contributing to a more flexible integration of graduates.

#### **2.3 School map of technical education and vocational training**

It should be recognized that for a few years, and even more than a decade, the ETFP school map has not been monitored and improved. As a result, it lacked the planning tools for managing the institutions and the various training courses provided. This is not conducive to forward-looking management of the system by the department. Especially since there is no performance program contract between the Ministry and the training institutions. All this explains the poor management of flows, with a poor

correlation between reception capacities often below requests which explode from year to year. Not to mention the failure to take into account the emergence of new promising professions linked to the evolution of technologies and services.

Nowadays, although it does not have institutions providing technical education as such, the Ministry in charge of Technical Education and Vocational Training develops three types of initial training [4]: (i) post-primary and secondary training delivering the professional qualification certificate (CQP), (ii) type A training that learners enter after middle school, which leads to the Professional Aptitude Certificate (CAP/ BEP), and the Technician's Certificate (BT), (iii) type B training preparing for the Brevet de Technicien Supérieur (BTS), which is offered to students holding the single Baccalaureate. These levels of certification and qualification in initial vocational and technical training are given in the below:

This training system is made up of training institutions that cover the three sectors of the national economy, namely: (i) Primary; (ii) Secondary; (iii) Tertiary. It should be noted that the Primary corresponds to the rural development sector, the secondary to the engineering sector) and the tertiary which is the trade and services sector. The system includes one hundred seventy-six (176) institutions, including fifty-seven (57) public institutions and one hundred and nineteen (119) private institutions totaling, for the 2018–2019 school year, a workforce of forty-four thousand eight hundred seven (44,807) learners including sixteen thousand four hundred and eighty-six (16,486) girls/women, that is 43.32%.

This Professional training system follows a logic of geographical distribution throughout the territory. Despite this mechanism, it should be noted that continuing education is poorly supported, while the informal sector in its apprenticeship component, which employs a large majority of young people who have not attended school, is practically ignored by funding programs, despite the existence of three (3) institutions for continuing education and development.

The **Table 1** gives the general evolution (Public and Private) of learners enrolled by TVET from 2012 to 2021.

The institutions mandated for continuing education and development, three in number as mentioned above, are:


#### **2.4 Internal efficiency**

Technical and vocational education, whose training is mainly focused on the tertiary sector regardless of the type, remains very underdeveloped with a number of students of less than 5% of students enrolled in secondary school. Although this share has practically doubled in 10 years (2.5% in 2007). In higher education, the number of students increased by 49% between 2007 and 2016, rising from 68,261 to 101,439. thanks to massive state support. The share of students enrolled in private education

*Perspective Chapter: Technical and Vocational Training Policies and Practices Facing... DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112446*


#### **Table 1.**

*Overall evolution of learners.*

thus increased from 5% in 2008 to 46% in 2016. In both public and private education, students are mainly enrolled in arts and social sciences.

The analysis of the school career of students in the system shows that only two-thirds of young Guineans receive 6 years of schooling while only a third follow 10 years of schooling. Indeed, although the gross admission rate to CP1 was 117% in 2016, analyzes indicate that only 67% of pupils reach the last year of primary school, a sign of a serious challenge in terms of universal primary completion. This challenge is accompanied by a low rate of access to and completion of the first cycle of secondary education; the rate of access to the 7th year is estimated at only 45%, and the rate of access to the 10th year at 32% in 2016. It should be noted, on the one hand, a high prevalence of late entries to school and on the other hand, the high rate of pupils outside the education system.

The question of children outside the system remains a major challenge for the Guinean education system insofar as 1.6 million children and young people aged 5–16, or 44% of the population of 5–16-year-olds, were outside the education system in 2016. It should be emphasized here that the still very high level of schools with incomplete cycles can be a factor in early school leaving. In primary education, despite a slight decrease between 2006 and 2016, the proportion of schools not offering the 6 levels of study is still very high. Indeed, primary schools, at the national level, (enrolling 35% of pupils) were incomplete schools, compared to 66% of establishments (enrolling 39%) in 2006. On the other hand, in secondary education, the proportion of schools in the 1st cycle offering 4 years of study was already high in 2006 and has also improved significantly over the period.

In terms of internal efficiency, the Guinean education system suffers from a significant waste of resources insofar as 32% of the resources invested in primary education and 35% of those invested in the first cycle of secondary education were wasted in 2016, due to a still too high proportion of repeaters and dropouts. Despite the good provisions prohibiting repetition within the sub-cycles, the latter still remains a practice firmly anchored in habits. In 2016, the average proportion of repeaters was 12% in primary education, 18% in the first cycle of secondary education, and 15% in the second cycle of secondary education with, however, a higher frequency of repetition in classes passing between two sub-cycles.

#### **2.5 External efficiency**

The analysis of external efficiency is essential for planning the supply of training beyond the primary cycle, in order to help direct public funding toward training justified by its ability to adequately integrate graduates into the labor market and to positively influence the development of the country. In Guinea, the labor market is characterized by a young active population and a predominance of informal jobs. Indeed, the third general census of population and housing, carried out in 2014, evaluates the total resident population at 10,599,848 inhabitants with a density of 43 inhabitants per km2 . The extremely young population poses real challenges for the education/training and employment sectors.

Indeed, the school-age population (4–24 years), which represented 49% of the total population in 2014, will increase by more than half (54%) between 2015 and 2030 with a potential demand for education and training services. Which will be stronger for the post-primary levels (In connection with the decrease in the birth rate, we will see a decrease in the weight of the age groups corresponding to preschool and primary and an increase for the post-primary levels). In addition, the average age of the Guinean population was estimated at 22 years in 2014, and those under 35 represent more than three-quarters (77%) of the population (RGPH 2014), a proportion which according to projections by the INS will decrease very little in the years to come. Indeed, according to projections, those under 35 will represent 74% of the total population in 2035.

Like other African countries, the Guinean labor market presents a formal/informal duality and is strongly dominated by informal sector activities (in connection with the decrease in the birth rate, we will witness a decrease in the weight of ages corresponding to preschool and primary and an increase for post-primary levels), characteristic of countries with a very narrow formal sector, the consequence of a saturated public administration and an embryonic formal private sector. Indeed, the available data show that the informal sector employs approximately 9 active individuals (15–64-year-olds) out of 10 (with a predominance of informal agricultural jobs), compared to approximately 10% in the modern sector, including 4% in the administration, public and 5% private.

Among young people aged 15–24, nearly one million (48%) were outside the education and training system and the labor market. The category of young people who are neither in training nor in employment, known by the acronym NEET, is made up of all young people who are unemployed or inactive. This result, compared with what is observed in a dozen African countries where data is available, shows the difficulty of integration for a majority of young Guineans, whether they are qualified or not.

#### **2.6 Financing TVET**

The results of the various studies and diagnoses within the framework of the restructuring of this subsystem revealed that the problems of financing constitute one of the major handicaps which slow down the evolution of Technical Education and Vocational Training. Also, in general, the maintenance of infrastructure and equipment to ensure their sustainability is a major concern. The Guinean Government has always had difficulty financing its education system and particularly technical education and vocational training; which means that the quality of the products has

*Perspective Chapter: Technical and Vocational Training Policies and Practices Facing... DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112446*

often been below the needs of the workplace, given that the resources are insufficient and/or unsuitable. In fact, the costs in this system are three or four times those of general education.

The mobilization of such large sums in a context of economic crisis and recession affecting the prices of export products is a major challenge to be met. To measure its extent, it is essential to assess the overall cost of TVET. It is regrettable that the technical/vocational education sector is the least resourced within the education system (4% on average). This lack of resources (materials, equipment, electrical energy, etc.) means that most of the vocational training provided in the institutions is approximately 80% theoretical.

#### **2.7 Management and governance**

Vocational Training, there is no need to emphasize it, plays a major role in the process of change in terms of training for the acquisition of the skills necessary for the realization of development programs, training in citizenship, responsibility and technical, technological, and scientific innovation for increasing productivity and improving the quality of life, which cannot happen without good governance and a dynamic network of partners. In terms of institutional governance, the establishment council is created and is a support and monitoring structure for the educational activity and the administrative and financial management of the establishment.

As part of the reform of the vocational training system, the renewal of the governance of training establishments is an ambition of the Department. This ambition is a necessity to strengthen consultation, at national and regional levels, in order to define the orientations of employment policies, training, and vocational guidance. The main objective of this improvement in the governance of training establishments is to associate economic operators from professional circles in a logic of partnership management. This important cultural evolution is the assurance of better monitoring and regular evaluation of the various measures deployed by the management of the training establishment.
