Better Education for Africa’s Rise project - Phases I and II

The Better Education for Africa’s Rise II (BEAR II) was a joint initiative of UNESCO and the Republic of Korea, implemented over five years from 2017 to 2022. The project supported five Eastern African countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, the United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda, in improving the relevance, quality and perception of their TVET systems. 

The global objective of BEAR II was to give young people in the five beneficiary Eastern African countries a better chance to access decent employment and/or generate self-employment as well as improve the socio-economic growth of the project countries. 

Three key achievements included:

• Making TVET more relevant to the needs of the economy and labour market;
• Enhancing the quality of TVET programmes and institutions;
• Improving the perception of TVET among young people, enterprises and society.

BEAR II draws on the knowledge and experience from the first BEAR project which was conducted in 2011 – 2016. 

The BEAR I project was launched in 2011 by UNESCO and funded by the Republic of Korea for five years (2011-2017). 

The project assisted five countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to improve their technical and vocational education and training (TVET) systems. These countries were Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Malawi, Namibia and Zambia. 

The project aimed to increase the relevance, quality and attractiveness of TVET in each of the beneficiary countries and simultaneously boost access, especially for women and disadvantaged groups, through three key project activities, as follows:

• A labour market analysis (LMA) and development of corresponding curricula in priority industry sectors as defined by beneficiary countries;
• Training of teachers in pedagogical, administrative and management and technical skills and;
• The development of a TVET management information system (MIS) in four of the five countries (Botswana, DRC, Malawi and Zambia).