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ABSTRACT

A 2012 McKinsey report, “The World at Work”, noted that South Asian countries,

along with some developing economies in Africa, will contribute 60% of the labor

force required by the global economy by 2030 due to demographic dividend arising

from a growing young population in these developing economies and shrinking

working-age populations in advanced economies due to aging. The same report also

noted that developing economies, including in South Asia, will face a surplus of low-

skilled workers, while there will be a shortage of medium and highly skilled

workers.

In any TVET innovation ecosystem, the ways in which TVET organizations manage

skills, competencies and knowledge will be a function of those forces that will shape

the organization. The critical element of the organization will be the dominance of

knowledge, skills and competencies as a factor of production. We see a shift from a

mass manufacturing economy to a knowledge, competency and skill-based economy.

The new economy thrives on competent workers who perform complex and highly

skilled jobs. The innovations in the eco-system is also 'disruptive' and they focus on

the integration of knowledge including skills and competencies) from different

sources and domains across space and time. Modern computing and

communications systems provide the infrastructure to send bits anywhere, anytime

in mass quantities. In this case, we have connectivity, but in in a disruptive eco-

system, we are also interested in interactivity and integration. In an effective and

efcient management of disruptions, we aim to move beyond connectivity to achieve

new levels of interactivity, increasing the semantic bandwidth, knowledge

bandwidth, activity bandwidth, and cultural bandwidth among people,

organizations, and communities.

Keywords: TVET Innovation Ecosystem, Disruptive Innovations, Skill-based

Economy

Disruptive Innovations in the TVET Eco-System:

Dr. Pramod B. Shrestha

Opportunities Challenges

Technical Session I : Presentation- 2

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BRIEF CV

In the last 44 years, Dr. Shrestha has held several important posts such as

Professor, Campus Chief, Project Co-coordinator/Project Chief and

International/National Consultant with various World Bank/Asian Development

Bank/UNDP and several Bi-Lateral nanced projects aimed at the improvement of

engineering and technical education and training system internationally.

Prof Shrestha is the rst Professor (1993) in Mechanical Engineering in Nepal and

served 34 years in the Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University Nepal. As a

Team leader of the High-Level National Task Force (2018), Prof Shrestha played a

key role in developing National Policy for the Technical Education and Vocational

Training (TVET) sector in Nepal.

At present, Prof. Shrestha is the Management Board Member (appointed by the

Government) of the Training Institute for Technical Instruction (TITI), the only

National Technical Teachers Training Institution in the country. Dr. Shrestha is

also working as an Advisor for Nepal Vocational Qualications System Project (a

joint project of the Government of Switzerland and the Government of Nepal). Prof

Shrestha is the awardee of many prestigious awards such as “Education Day Gold

Medal by Government of Nepal, the “Best Teacher” by CPSC, Manila, Paul Harris

Fellow by the Rotary International.