ABSTRACT
This chapter has three goals. First, it will describe the long-term interest in the ‘greening’ of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and the significance, scope and purpose of this according to international agencies concerned with balancing economic growth with sustainability, inclusiveness, and decent work. We will argue that the focus of TVET for sustainable development in Asia has had a decidedly social justice focus, for example in rural transformation, compared with the predominant concern with energy efficiency, resource conservation and pollution prevention in the Global North. Second, the chapter will outline the world-leading initiatives to reorient skills development toward green growth in the Republic of Korea, despite the fact that a major research study found that such initiatives are not widespread in the region. This study, by the Asian Development Bank and the Education University of Hong Kong, on ‘skills development for inclusive growth, sustainable development and the greening of economies’ in the Asia region found that the transition toward this goal is only occurring where the influence of government regulation and incentives is strong, in large firms, especially those with a foreign or export orientation, and where the perceived costs of change are low and perceived consumer demand is high. As a result, we argued that there is currently a dispersed and disconnected narrative of skills training for sustainable and inclusive development in Asia.
