| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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The VPIS started with Bahrain’s Economic Vision 2030 in mind, where it refers to developing a productive, globally competitive economy, shaped by the government and driven by pioneering private sectors. The provision of high quality vocational training and the establishment of continuous improvement amongst training providers are seen as crucial to achieving this. The process began in 2008 by reviewing providers licensed by the MoL and MoE. Providers’ strengths and areas to be addressed were diagnosed.
A vocational improvement initiative is an important part of the NES:
2.3.3.1 Implement a vocational improvement programme … to raise the quality of training and student outcomes at Bahrain’s vocational institutes …
Article 2.3.3.1 includes reference to the explicit requirement for decisions by the MoL and Tamkeen to be based on QQA review report outcomes.
The MoL, HCVT, QQA and Tamkeen declared their commitment to VPIS, signing MOU in 2009 with backing of the Economic Development Board (EDB). VPIS was formed in October 2009 with three main objectives: to implement a comprehensive vocational improvement programme, to develop connections between QQA reports, MoL licensing, and funding decisions by MoL and Tamkeen, and to establish an improvement strategy for vocational providers.
VPIS first met in March 2010, with QQA hosting meetings and collating review data and reports. In 2010 the committee revised its terms of reference, assigned roles and responsibilities among the three main parties as well as the EDB, MoE and the HCVT. During June to September 2010 the committee agreed on KPIs and deliverables, with reporting frequency. The time line for the KPIs was agreed to cover the period till 31 – 12 – 2014. On September 2010 a portal was made available at EDB to upload VPIS working documents, data and reports.
From June 2010 the QQA has shared with Tamkeen the common areas for improvement, to enable Tamkeen to design specific workshops for vocational training providers through its TEPS programmes. These were designed to target trainers, administrative staff, top management and owners of institutes serving in the education and training sector. The first TEPS programme covered July 2010 to June 2011 and TEPS2 covered September 2012 to April 2014. In 2010 Tamkeen started to include the outcomes of review reports within its tenders’ evaluations, scoring service providers with QQA published ratings, recognizing ’Satisfactory’” as the minimum acceptable grade. Tamkeen also launched in 2010 further supporting programmes to funding providers in improving infrastructure, IT systems and quality procedures.
In October 2009 MoL started to act on limiting levy payments for institutions deemed Inadequate and subjected to a monitoring visit by the DVR review team. From February 2011, DVR began sharing reports with MoL on providers who scored Inadequate well in advance prior, which enabled MoL to form an internal committee to support these institutes to help them improve.
In early 2012, MoL took legal advice to revoke the licenses of providers scoring Inadequate twice consecutively. This is not yet finalised, so on January 2012 a Joint Committee was formed from all major stakeholders (VPIS members, Chamber of Commerce, Labour Unions, and Society of Private Training Institutes) to review and revise Law 25. A final draft was presented in December 2013, which will be finally approved.
So far, 22 meetings have been conducted by VPIS. The key outcome of the above various initiatives is an effective communication and reporting mechanism that has been continuously refined and used to report on their KPIs’ to the other partners. The KPIs’ were reviewed and update on September 2014 resulting more challenging targets, and including specific KPIs’ for the General Directorate of National Qualification Framework (GDQ) of the QQA.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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A strong education and training system in Kingdom of Bahrain is the responsibility of the main VPIS stakeholders. Initiative 2.3.3.1 (vocational improvement implementation plan) was put forward by NES, to run from 1 January 2009 and to 31 December 2014. The QQA Chief Executive was appointed to lead this initiative. An MOU was signed by the four main parties, affirming their commitment to the strategy.
The MoL is the main licensing and regulating body for most privately owned training providers. A license is granted on the basis of various practical issues including the sustainability of premises, qualifications of their staff and the outcome of the MoL inspection. Although providers obtain some work directly from companies or individuals, their main source of income is the levy fund, administered by the HCVT. MoL agreed to use QQA review outcomes to inform the awarding of training contracts as well as preventing HCVT levy contracts to provider judged Inadequate by QQA. Tamkeen also plays an effective role in the strategy, as it provides funding for capacity building and support programmes for all institutions. Tamkeen uses the generic areas for improvement diagnosed by QQA to organise capacity-building programmes. Since July 2010, Tamkeen has sponsored 58 workshops addressing different improvement areas diagnosed by QQA review reports, with nearly 1,000 training opportunities provided for Bahrainis working in private VET institutions. Tamkeen has also declared that institutes must be rated at least ’Satisfactory’ by QQA to be eligible for participation in Tamkeen’s projects to provide training programmes for provider such as career progression programme (CPP). Tamkeen is one of the largest purchasers of training locally, and dealing with most VET institutions in the country. This prerequisite therefore increases the need for institutes to improve their scores in order to benefit from funding.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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Each of the four major stakeholders have well established human and physical infrastructure and have internally financed all activities related to this initiative as part of their own annual budget. For the implementation of the capacity building support, TEPS1 and 2 programmes were launched by Tamkeen, who allocated about BD700,000 to the scheme. Tamkeen has collaborated with international training institutes to design, implement and project manage these programmes. An evaluation system is in place to measure the effectiveness and satisfaction of the beneficiaries. The findings suggest that participants of both TEPS 1 and 2 are very satisfied by the learning outcomes of these workshops.
The QQA makes all review reports, examination results, review instruments and annual reports available to the public through a user-friendly website that is frequently updated and well maintained. Review reports, once approved by the QQA’s board of directors and the Cabinet of the Prime Minister, are shared with stakeholders during regular VPIS meetings for further action, sent to providers, and made available to the public. QQA has held several self-evaluation awareness workshops, forums and conferences to share and spread best practice amongst training institutions and individuals. Some panel reviews, which require local and international specialists, are supported internally through the QQA budget.
MoL has formed a committee to follow up on all Inadequate providers and ensure that they are progressing on their action plans to address the QQA’s review visit recommendations. A budget is allocated to pay overtime to staff who attend these visits outside normal working hours. Additionally, the MoL has started awareness visits to newly established institutes to ensure that they follow QQA review requirements and cooperate accordingly. This is a result of recommendations made by the VPIS team. The MoL is introducing a web-based portal to provide better access to citizens and other stakeholders about institutions status, programmes, and QQA rating. The QQA and Tamkeen will have direct access to this portal, as discussed and agreed on at VPIS meetings.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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The strategy team met regularly and included all primary stakeholders’, including government agencies and citizens. Both strategic and tactical matters were discussed, with responsibilities being assigned for resolving issues and reporting progress. The main objective of the strategy was to raise the quality of training and learners’ outcomes of vocational institutions in the Kingdom. The team ensured the flow of data and information among members. A shared sense of responsibility, common objectives and high commitment were demonstrated. Meetings were conducted professionally and focused on outcomes, so that all members engaged and delivered. The effectiveness of this team could be adopted as a model across other work groups to improve cooperation among governmental agencies.
The above objective was converted into success measures and KPIs’. The agreed approach was to use incentives to reward well-performing institutes in QQA reviews, support Inadequate providers, and take action against those who did not improve by stopping their levy entitlement. Each of the stakeholders had specific KPIs’ that helped to achieve the overarching objective.
Tamkeen, through TEPS 1 and 2 workshops and other capacity building activities, provided effective capacity building, with most workshops based on common areas for improvement diagnosed through QQA reviews.
MoL created an internal committee to address the issues of Inadequate providers. The committee followed up on Inadequate institutes to monitor their progress in addressing QQA review visit recommendations. HCVT linked each institute’s levy entitlement to a successful outcome with QQA reviews. Before VPIS, most training providers lacked commitment to improve their quality of offering and did not make effective use of available improvement resources and capacity building opportunities.
As a key success of this strategy, MoL started the initiative of revising its current licensing Law (Law 25). VPIS members were major players in articulating this law, with representative from employers, training providers and NGO’s invited to participate on the final draft.
As a result, comparison of QQA’s Cycle 1 and 2 review reports clearly illustrates that significant number of providers have improved. The baseline at the start was 69% of providers scoring ‘Satisfactory’ or above. The KPI was set for 80% by end-2014; currently the performance measure is 82%, with 42% of providers having improved their grade by at least one step. Meanwhile, VPIS have observed that there is a correlation between institutions who have utilised training and growth grants and those who have addressed QQA recommendations and improved their provision.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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From the outset, VPIS realised the importance of keeping track of progress in achieving objectives as determined by NES under Article 2.3.3.1. The team decided to report on progress with measurable indicators and brief qualitative explanations. Objectives were split between members, each being asked to propose success criteria and KPIs’ satisfying their own activities but linked to the strategy.
After several meetings consensus agreement was reached on KPIs’ and measures of success. A monitoring matrix and quarterly reporting template were produced to monitor progress and evaluate activities. Progress reports have been the main agenda item of every VPIS meeting, with each member submitting, prior to each meeting, a report on activities towards achieving targets.
Very important was the regularity of meetings over the five years. KPIs’ determined the efficacy of the committee and were regularly tracked and performance percentages against measures of success have been regularly presented. Areas of concern were shared and notes were added to clarify matters for further discussion or appropriate actions.
The strategy has been converted into four KPIs’, one for each government entity, as follows (last report was in June 2014):
KPI 1 (Tamkeen): take-up of Tamkeen’s schemes by vocational providers
• Target: 80% or more providers by end-2014
• Base figure 21; current progress (June 2014) 56%
KPI 2 (MoL): MoL's quarterly reports on training providers’ adherence to legislation
• Target: 95% of providers compliant with MoL inspections by end-2014
• Base figure: not available; current progress: 84% (on 62 inspections)
KPI 3 (HCVT-MoL): Improve utilisation of the levy
• Target: 60% of the utilised amount will be on accredited programmes by 2014
• Base Figure 11%; current progress: 13.6%
KPI 4 (QQA-DVR): Review all eligible providers, all review reports to be approved and published
• Target: 100% reviewed by October 2014. , 100% of reports approved and published by December 2014
• Current progress: 90%
Measures of success are:
1- Percentage of providers judged Satisfactory or better by 2014
• Target: 80%
• Current progress: 81.9%
2- Percentage of key areas of improvement addressed by providers
• Target: 20%
• Current progress: 26.7%
3- Percentage of Inadequate providers who improve their grades at the next review by 2014
• Target: 80%
• Current progress: 72% (13 out of 18)
4- More accurate self-evaluation by providers (reduced difference between SEF and review grades).
• Target: difference 0.75 or less
• Base Figure: +1.55; current progress: .95
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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Like any other national strategy, the involvement of diverse organisations is a challenge where speed and coherence of output are concerned. Many policy discussions took place, and for members to portray the importance of suggested policy changes based on VPIS discussions is a challenge since some suggestions require ministerial decrees and some changes in law which take time and effort.
Firstly, one of the main challenges facing the implementation of VPIS was the need to update some ministerial decrees and legislation. This proved to take longer than expected. Some practical steps were taken, such as support given to vocational providers found to be Inadequate through the formation of a follow-up committee in the MoL, and the monitoring visits conducted by QQA. These provided the support needed for the institutions. However, the decision taken by HCVT to link the levy entitlement created the need to revise Law 25 so that this linking has legal weight.
Secondly, as there was no measurement of the status of vocational providers in the Kingdom of Bahrain and the quality of their offering, setting KPIs’ was difficult. Some agencies had no solid baselines to work with and that led to some ambitious KPIs’ being set. Through the learning process of different agencies’ experience, KPIs’ were reviewed for the second cycle and set more realistically, with mutually agreed KPIs’ and success measures being put forward.
Thirdly, the working team initially considered a standing committee with long-term membership (and hence its continuity refer to green highlight). Ultimately, it became a fluid committee with members being co-opted as needed from relevant entities. Continuity is maintained through clear and regular reporting on progress towards the achievement of KPIs’ and existing project materials and updates were always available to orient new members.
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