An appropriate Implementation arrangement is key to delivering a successful project. The project could have had greater impact if it had the Nanning Education Bureau as implementing agency (IA). Project deliverables could have been more institutionalized and led to the deepening of the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) reform in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The Nanning Development and Reform Commission played an overall coordination role but lacked direct supervision authority over the two TVET schools. If the Nanning Education Bureau were the implementing agency, it could mandate the two TVET schools to design and implement more binding key performance indicators (KPIs) that are more measurable and geared toward high-quality TVET content. These KPIs could include: (i) mandatory green campus energy conservation, (ii) knowledge product development, (iii) TVET school and industry alliance formulation, (iv) on-the-job training, and (v) advanced TVET teaching and training. These KPIs would be measured at output levels and the TVET schools would be assessed on their ability to produce tangible results in these areas. Instead of these KPIs, the output deliverables of the project, for example, outputs 3 and 4 were mainly about civil works, equipment, and project management support, and lacked focus on scaling up TVET in the utonomous region or on making the municipal level TVET more responsive to the market and other emerging sectors. The project targeted two TVET schools and focused on two sectors (early childhood education and medical, health, and elderly care) only in Nanning city and the tracer study was not fully utilized to forecast market development and labor demand trajectory. Innovative and value-added features that could be catalyzed by ADB financing were not designed; instead, the project merely focused on basic features, such as curriculum development, training base establishment, and civil works.
Guangxi Nanning Vocational Education Development Project