Global Examples of International TVET Technical and Vocational Education and Training / Global Examples of International TVET Canada’s peers in the global economy are actively supporting the offering of technical and vocational training abroad, particularly as a targeted tool to support labour mobility. Canada has lagged behind countries like Australia, Germany, and the UK in exploring the benefits of international TVET to attract needed talent. What is International TVET? International TVET is when training from one country (i.e. the home country of a training provider and/or curriculum) is delivered to trainees in another country or countries Training is designed to grant credentials that are recognized/ have functional equivalency in both/all count. Training is targeted to specific skills required for specific occupational fields — i.e. it is not generalized, but rather specialized and often workplace-focused. It is often designed with direct employer and industry input. Training duration is short-to-medium term a few months to two years. It may be in a flexible or more accessible format, such as short courses, or evening and weekend programs. Goals of International TVET Models There are multiple reasons why governments in ‘training provider’ countries may actively support or even directly fund the delivery of training in ‘training receiver’ countries. These are not mutually exclusive, and are often pursued simultaneously: International TVET as development and international cooperation Governments sometimes fund TVET programs as a form of assistance and knowledge-sharing. Canada has an established track record of funding the provision of TVET support from Canadian providers to other partner countries. The goals may include developing capacity in specific industries (e.g. ‘green’ skills in the Caribbean), supporting equity-seeking groups in the labour market (e.g. for women and girls in Tanzania), or strengthening a country’s overall TVET ecosystem (e.g. growing TVET in Bhutan). However, the goal of these programs has never been to support eventual migration of trainees to Canada. International TVET as services export In Australia, where education is a major service export, there is a robust policy environment to support offshore TVET, including a regulatory system that oversees eligible ‘Registered Training Organizations’ (RTOs). In Canada, a few colleges have operated satellite campuses (mostly in the Middle East) or participate in international partnerships, offering Canadian-created training to students in the country of delivery. However, these arrangements are not very common, they are not designed to support migration to Canada, and credentials earned are not recognized as ‘Canadian’ by the immigration system. International TVET as employer-specific, multinational workforce pipeline In these cases, companies that are looking to build up their offshore workforce may directly fund offshore training delivery in the location where they benefit from additional labour, sometimes in collaboration with local training institutions. For example, large German multi-national corporations have established cooperation agreements with vocational training institutions in China and Mexico. International TVET as a labour mobility advantage Offering ‘high-quality’ credentials from a country where mobility-minded trainees are likely to have those credentials recognized within immigration processes or valued by employers in destination countries. This can be expansive beyond the country of the training provider: i.e. Australian-provided cybersecurity training may be valuable for a trainee hoping to move to the UK. In a recent study of offshore trainees learning at Australian-partnered institutions, trainees reported that having opportunities to work overseas was one of the top three reasons they enrolled in an Australian-provided program. Global Skills Partnerships Global Skills Partnerships (GSPs) are the most established model of international TVET intentionally designed to link training and skilled labour mobility. While other countries in the EU and Australia have participated in GSP pilot projects, Canada has not yet pursued this model. The term ‘Global Skills Partnerships’ is often used near-interchangeably with other terminology including ‘Skills Mobility Projects’ or sometimes ‘Talent Partnerships’. Most often, GSPs are supported by a formal bilateral or multilateral international agreement. In GSPs, a ‘destination country’ and a ‘country of origin’ (or occasionally multiple countries of origin) set up an agreement where TVET and resources from the destination country are delivered to trainees in a country of origin. The goal is a dual-track model: one where some trainees would remain in the country of origin after completing training, and some trainees would be supported to pursue migration to the destination country, filling key talent gaps. Champions of GSPs say that the framework, implemented well, creates benefits for origin countries, destination countries, immigrants, and employers. Global Skill Partnership Model A 2025 World Bank publication identifies three key features of a Global Skills Partnership: Training must address skill shortages in both origin and destination countries Firms and governments of destination countries shoulder the primary share of financing training Migration must occur through legal pathways Key benefits of GSPs include A double win approach to filling labour gaps By providing two tracks for training — one for those looking to migrate and one for those planning to stay in the source country — the programs create shared human capital and prevent brain drain from origin countries. Employer linkages Best practices for GSPs encourage the inclusion of employers and the involvement of the private sector from the very beginning of project design to ensure targeted skills training and effective job matching with graduates. Coordinated skills recognition One of the biggest challenges for new migrants looking for work in a destination country is credential recognition and employer trust. GSPs are designed to actively facilitate skills recognition in both countries. Creating a dedicated talent pool of potential migrants amidst a global competition for skilled workers As the race for skilled talent is heating up, providing destination-specific TVET to mobility-minded people in talent source countries gives destination countries a competitive advantage in attracting workers. Lowered costs, targeted support, and greater predictability for trainees Moving to a destination country in order to attain credentials is expensive, difficult, and can be alienating especially if there is no guarantee of permit or job afterwards. For trainees who want to move, the GSP model can de-risk a lot of the most challenging parts of the immigration experience. Challenges with GSPs include Bureaucratic barriers to entry Because the GSP model typically involves establishing a full bilateral or multilateral agreement between countries, it can be difficult to get programs off the ground. Challenges with scalability To date, most GSPs have been targeted pilots and have had difficulty with scaling up. Among other challenges, key barriers to success are short funding and participation runways, as well as narrow scope built into the project design. GSP programs are targeted, but not necessarily nimble Many GSP agreements lead to programs that are designed to support very specific roles and cohorts of participating employers for a fixed time. This can make it challenging to be responsive to industry changes and shifting demands in the labour market, including the expansion of training offerings to meet new demands. Case Study Philippines-Germany Nursing Global Skill Partnership In 2019, Germany and the Philippines established the first GSP in nursing through a multi-stakeholder coalition from both public and private sectors. Germany’s government invested in training for nurses who move abroad and those who remain in the Philippines. Three Philippine nursing schools provide the training, which is informed by German hospitals and long-term care facilities. As of April 2025, the program has trained over 300 nurses, with 100 nurses prepared to move to Germany. 300 Nurses Trained 100 Prepared to move to Germany Connection to Global Skilling Centers By supporting GSCs, Canada could harness many of the advantages of traditional Global Skills Partnerships while avoiding some of their constraints. There are many shared features of the GSPs and 369 Global’s vision for Global Skilling Centres: these include creating dual tracks for trainees, bringing in employer collaboration, integrating targeted wraparound services for immigration, and ensuring linkages to labour market needs. However, GSCs — as envisioned below — aim to be more easily scaled, replicable, and labour-market responsive than GSPs. This approach is aligned with recent literature examining challenges and opportunities with the GSP approach. Scaling or reaping broader benefits of the GSP model is ‘both promising and complex’: While there remains significant interest in the international community, growth of GSPs has remained modest. Authors of a recent International Labour Organization paper examining GSPs propose that simple expansion or replication of traditional GSPs is not necessarily the answer to leveraging the potential of labour mobility initiatives: “One open question is whether scale is best reached by extending or expanding a particular [GSP] project, or by applying its lessons to immigration or other policies (such as development or labour) more broadly […] governments could instead consider ways to apply lessons from pilot projects to help tackle barriers to mobility…”. Global Skilling Centres represent an opportunity to apply the lessons of the GSP model at real scale by: Working in collaboration with governments but not necessarily as part of formal multilateral agreements Enable participation from a broader swathe of training providers and employers Building flexibility and market incentives into the model: GSC-offered training can change or expand to meet Canadian and delivery-country needs Case Study Australia Pacific Training Coalition The Australia Pacific Training Coalition (APTC) is the largest example of a labour mobility agreement, started in 2007. It has trained over 20,000 graduates across sectors in nine Pacific Island countries. Initially, program graduates’ rates of immigration to Australia was only around two per cent. Yet changes to the program that were designed to bolster the labour mobility track have had strong results: eight per cent of graduates have migrated to Australia since 2019. Of employers who hired APTC graduates, 98 per cent said that they were satisfied with them, and 91 per cent said trainees had a positive impact on their firm’s productivity and performance. Key sectors have included community services, engineering and electrotechnology, hospitality and tourism, education, agriculture, and business. The APTC receives funding from Australia’s department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, with some co-investments from Pacific Island governments. Increased Migration Rate 20,000 Graduates Across Sectors High Employee Satisfaction Introducing the Challenge Current approaches to correcting labour shortages are not sufficient Canada’s Skills and Labour Market Gaps Significant skills and labour shortages threaten Canada’s prosperity Aligning Global Training with Canadian Immigration Canada’s identity and success have long been shaped by the contributions of immigrants. Global Examples of International TVET Technical and Vocational Education and Training. Global Skilling Centres Applying International Insights to the Canadian Context Recommendations To effectively support trainees to develop Canadian-recognized skills, we need a supportive environment of policy and partnerships