Group photo from the leadership and management capacity-building training program for education leaders from Ivory Coast [Korea University of Technology and Education]
Group photo from the leadership and management capacity-building training program for education leaders from Ivory Coast [Korea University of Technology and Education]

Korea University of Technology and Education, known as Koreatech, is working to cultivate education leaders who will drive vocational training reform in Ivory Coast.

Koreatech's Industry-Academia Cooperation Foundation and its Institute for Technology Transfer to Developing Countries announced Friday that they are jointly running a leadership and management capacity-building training program for Ivory Coast education officials, in partnership with the Korea International Cooperation Agency.

The program runs from Sunday through Aug. 1 over 14 days and is the second-year course of an international development cooperation project spanning 2025 to 2027. Fifteen participants are attending, including policy officials and institutional administrators from Ivory Coast's Ministry of Employment, Technical and Vocational Training (METFPA) and the National Institute for Technical and Vocational Education (IPNETP), as well as educators.

The training is designed to strengthen the management and leadership capabilities of Ivory Coast's education leaders, with the aim of improving the effectiveness of technical and vocational education and training, known as TVET, and building a sustainable education system capable of producing talent aligned with the country's industrialization needs.

The curriculum is organized into four modules: building learner-centered TVET governance, effective instructional design and teaching methods, strengthening school leadership and TVET management capacity, and country reporting and action plan development. Participants will study Korea's economic development experience, its vocational education system, teacher training frameworks, institutional evaluation practices and curriculum design, and will also learn about industry-academia cooperation cases that incorporate industrial workforce demands into educational programs.

Trainees will analyze the current state and challenges of vocational education in their home country and individually draft and present action plans for improving school operations and curricula. They are also scheduled to visit Koreatech, the Korea Human Resources Development Service's Global Skilled Technicians Promotion Center, Korea Polytechnics' Ulsan campus, Posco and Hyundai Motor Company to observe Korea's vocational training practices and industrial sites firsthand.

Kim Nam-ho, a professor in Koreatech's Department of Architectural Engineering, said the program was structured not merely to introduce Korea's vocational education cases, but to have participants design their own implementation plans suited to their home education environments. "We will contribute to building a sustainable TVET system in Ivory Coast, drawing on our accumulated experience in vocational education and training and teacher development," he said.

Since its establishment in 2005, Koreatech's Institute for Technology Transfer to Developing Countries has carried out international development cooperation projects in the vocational training sector for developing nations including Ivory Coast, Morocco, Rwanda and Uzbekistan, supporting the development of industrial human resources and the spread of vocational training systems.


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