I. INTRODUCTION:-
UNRWA offers free education and boarding for its Palestinian
refugee youth. It started the current Technical and Vocational
Education and Training (TVET) programme in 1953. The vision
of the programme is to have a distinguished technical
and vocational education and training that would prepare
qualified graduates to have job opportunities available
in the labour market and would help achieve decent living
for Palestine refugee society.
The mission of TVET programme is to prepare and implement
specialized and diversified technical and vocational programme
to meet the needs of local and regional markets and to
cope with the latest developments and provide the Palestine
refugee youth with the desired knowledge, skill, and attitudes
to secure suitable job. UNRWA operates in 5 fields, namely,
Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, West Bank and Gaza. It supervises
8 training centres distributed among the said fields.
Of these, there are four training centres (in West Bank
and Gaza); two of which are exclusively technical and
vocational institutions, while the other two centres provide
teacher training in addition to the TVET programme. From
gender point of view, two centres are co-educational,
one is exclusively for young men and one, namely, Ramallah
Women’s Training Centre (RWTC) is exclusively for young
women. TVET programme comprises two-year trade (post preparatory)
vocational courses and two-year semi-professional (post-secondary)
technical courses. In the early 1990s the Agency introduced
short-term vocational training courses, aimed at training
students in areas where there is a high demand in labour
markets. Admission to the vocational courses requires
the successful completion of the basic education cycle
(9 or 10 years of schooling, depending on the system).
As applied in the host countries, the trade courses offered
are in areas like automotive, building and woodwork, climatization
and sanitation, electrical power, electronics, metal fabrication
and machining as well as traditional women’s crafts. Admission
to the technical courses requires the successful completion
of 12 years of schooling and courses cover specializations
in the fields of architecture and art, commerce, computer
technology, electronic engineering, hotel management,
paramedical, surveying and civil engineering. The four
UNRWA vocational training centres (VTCs) are listed in
table (1), which presents data, related to the year of
establishment as well as the number of available courses
and training places.
Table (1)
DISTRIBUTION OF UNRWA TRAINING CENTRES (TC) PER YEAR OF
ESTABLISHMENT, NUMBER OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING COURSES AND
AVAILABLE TRAINING PLACES (2002/2003)
| Field |
VT centre |
Year of establishment |
No. of VT courses |
No.of available training places |
| Trade |
Semi-Prof. |
Total |
| West Bank |
Kalandia TC |
1953 |
13 |
0 |
13 |
458 |
| RMTC |
1960 |
0 |
7 |
7 |
286 |
| RWTC |
1962 |
2 |
14 |
16 |
580 |
| Gaza |
Gaza TC |
1954 |
14 |
9 |
23 |
834 |
| Total |
2159 |
Click to view information about
the four UNRWA training centers.
II. ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE OF UNRWA TECHNICAL & VOCATIONAL
EDUCATION & TRAINING DIVISION (TVETD)
The main role of the TVET Division at HQ (Amman)
is to provide professional guidance and assume overall
technical responsibility for the planning, designing,
supervising, organizing and developing the Agency’s technical
and vocational education and training programme in UNRWA’s
five fields of operations. It also provides vocational
and career guidance for students joining the Agency’s
VTCs and placement for their graduates.
These roles are carried out by the Chief of the Division,
three administrative staff, and (14) Vocational and Technical
Education Specialists (VTESs) of the following specializations:
Auto Motive Trades, Building Trades, Business and Office
Practice, Computer Science, Electrical Trades, English
Language, Industrial Electronics, Metal Trades, Paramedical,
Nursing, Women Craft and Home Economics, Refrigeration
& air Conditioning, Arch. & Arts, and Technical Drawing.
Two out of 14 VTE Specialists are currently under procedural
steps of recruitment, one for the Building Trades and
the other for the electronic specializations.
These Specialists prepare new syllabi or update existing
ones, develop instructional materials and schemes of work,
guide and train instructors, assist in improving the status
of training facilities and evaluate the training progress
of the courses under their technical supervision.
At each of the five fields of UNRWA operation, namely
West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, Chief Field
Education Programme is responsible about the VT centres
which are immediately supervised by the respective Principals.
A team of deputy principals, senior instructors and faculty
instructors assist in running the TEVT in each centre.
III. DESCRIPTION OF TVET COURSES
TVET courses are of 2-year duration, except welding
and pipe fabrication, computer typing and data processing
and machine maintenance courses; each is of one-year duration.
One training year is of 40-week duration and each week
consists of 42 class periods. The semi-professional courses
at the training centres in Jordan and the West Bank dedicate
an average of 32-36 weeks per year to their training programme,
in accordance with the official system as used in these
fields.
The trade or post preparatory courses dedicate 28 periods
to trade practice, which is carried out in the various
workshops at the training centres. Four periods are used
for theoretical instruction on the trade. The remaining
10 periods are used for classes in English language, Mathematics,
General Science and Technical Drawing that are directly
related to the trade.
The semi-professional or post-secondary courses have certain
flexibility in the design and in the distribution of the
42 weekly periods. This design and distribution of training
periods is based on the proposals by the TVET specialists
for the centre in Gaza, or the Palestinian Authority for
Agency’s training centres in the West Bank. An average
of 30 – 35 periods are normally dedicated to technical
subjects, while the remaining ones are used for instruction
in topics like English language, Computer, Applied Mathematics,
and General Science. Arabic language, Islamic Culture
are requested by the Ministry of Education and Higher
Education (MOE & HE), the contents of which are directly
related to the course requirements.
Some courses fall under the so-called “Community College
programme”. The VTCs, which offer this type of courses
have to follow, as a minimum requirement, the syllabi
as prescribed by the MOE&HE. The TVET specialist and other
professional staff at the VTCs usually enrich the syllabi.
The trainees sit, at the end of the 2-year training period,
for a comprehensive examination, conducted by the Ministry
of Education and Higher Education. A diploma is awarded
by the Ministry of Higher Education of the Palestinian
Authority to successful trainees.
The results of the Agency’s VTCs graduates have consistently
been higher than those from other private and public community
colleges. The Agency awards, on the other hand, diplomas
to successful trainees in Gaza, as the centres in these
fields conduct their own examinations according to technical
instructions issued by the Department of Education.
Extra hours over and above the Community College study
plans are used to enrich technical instruction so that
graduates will acquire higher technical skills as compared
to their counterparts in other colleges. Moreover, On-the-Job-Training
for at least 4 weeks is followed by all courses as advised
by VTE Specialist.
Click to view training courses
offered by UNRWA
STRENGTHINING EDUCATION-INDUSTRY INTERFACE
The Department of Education is planning for the Technical
and Vocational Education and Training Programmes as provided
by the 8 Centres Agency wide, to be distinguished as the
most relevant, flexible and responsive to the market needs
and changes. To achieve this objective, the TVET Division
and the Training Centres are all concerned in establishing
the mechanisms and the channels, which are strongly linked
to the local community companies, industries and other
vocational institutions. One of these mechanisms is the
formation of Advisory Team (AT). This team is centralized
and formed at Head Quarter level. It is responsible for
the formation of the master plan for developing and supervising
the training programmes as provided at the Training Centers.
The team is composed of the following staff members: Chief
Specialists, two VTC Principals and the Placement and
Career Guidance Officer. In addition, one representative
of each of the following sectors: Al-Balqua Applied University,
Vocational Training Corporation, Industry and Commerce
Chamber, professional Association Union, Women Sector
and two representatives of the Private Sector.