With the outbreak of the coronavirus, the economies of developing economies, which have already been plagued by youth unemployment and poverty, became more vulnerable as the virus exacerbated the situation and resulted in more job losses. Consequently, to mitigate the effect of the virus on the developing economies post COVID-19, the chapter argues that developing entrepreneurship skills in technical and vocational education and training through a multi-stakeholder partnership remains a viable strategy. Thus, through an exploratory approach, the chapter reviewed related literature on the subject under study. The findings highlighted the following multi-stakeholders, namely the training institutions, enterprises (formal and informal), government, and non-governmental organisations, among others. Thus, this chapter concludes that collaboration between these mentioned stakeholders would aid in the development of the much-needed entrepreneurship skills in TVET, thereby serving as a recovery strategy for developing economies.
TopIntroduction
Entrepreneurship education is considered a critical component of any given nation that aims to develop the employment capacity of its youth force. This is because of its potential to address issues related to unemployment and the growth of a nation’s economy (Gamede & Uleanya, 2019). In recent times, poverty and youth unemployment, especially in developing economies, has undergone major debate, and the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has exacerbated the situation. Therefore, to tackle the menace of poverty and unemployment among youth at a global level, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) recommends Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) as an alternative pathway by developing an entrepreneurship mindset and education (UNESCO, 2003).
TVET has been considered a system of education with the potential to combat the rising wave of poverty and unemployment, and to address the changing skills need of the workplace and rapid technological innovation at a global level. It is a department of education with the capacity to equip its recipients with skills and competencies that guarantee them either self or paid employment in the industry. However, despite this recognition accorded TVET, its provision has been marred with colossal challenges including poor funding, a dearth/shortage of qualified training personnel, lack of workshop facilities, overcrowded classrooms, insufficient classrooms and workshop buildings, obsolete curriculum, poor administration and management of TVET, and too few stakeholder partnerships, among others (Watters et al., 2013; Okwelle & Wordu, 2014; Takei, 2016).
Consequently, it is argued that one major approach to recovering from the impact of COVID-19 on the economies of developing nations is to establish robust collaboration between TVET providers and stakeholders within other sectors in the development of entrepreneurship skills. This chapter addresses one objective, namely the role of multi-stakeholders in the development of entrepreneurship skills in TVET. This objective is addressed through an exploratory qualitative approach, where data is generated through secondary sources by reviewing, inter alia, empirical studies, policies, and reports on the focus of the chapter.
In the following section, a brief review of related literature is presented on the coronavirus and its impact on developing economies, entrepreneurship education, TVET education, entrepreneurship education in TVET, multi-stakeholder partnership (MSP), and MSPs in TVET. Also presented is the methodology, findings and discussion, future research directions and conclusion.