Translative Adaptation of Foreign Skills Formation Models: Cases of Japanese Development Cooperation in Southeast Asia

This volume focuses on the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) aspect, which is designed to supply skilled workers, in particular intermediate workers including the technicians and skilled machine operators required for industrialization, with specific reference to the experience of Japanese industrial development cooperation. Based on selected case studies, the volume examines whether and how Japanese industrial development cooperation for TVET has been implemented in such a way that it contributes to facilitating the processes of learning and local customization of the acquired knowledge by aid recipient countries and institutions—from the perspective of “translative adaptation” as developed by Maegawa Keiji, a Japanese economic anthropologist.

This volume comprises eight chapters:
(i) background and overview of this volume and its relation to the research project on “Japanese Experience of Industrial Development and Development Cooperation: Analysis of Translative Adaptation Processes”
(ii) theories underlying current development cooperation for skill development and a common analytical framework
(iii) the industry/employer engagement system at Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI) in Vietnam
(iv) the development of the TVET teacher training programs at the Center for Instructor and Advanced Skill Training (CIAST) in Malaysia
(v) the development of the national skills evaluation system in Vietnam, which incorporates elements of both Japanese and Western systems
(vi) the skill evaluation sub-program of the Automotive Human Resource Development Project (AHRDP) in Thailand
(vii) a local initiative to develop manufacturing (called Monozukuri in Japanese) human resources through multi-stakeholder coordination in the south of Vietnam
(viii) cross-cutting themes and conclusion, including the factors that promote translative adaptation

Mori Junichi, former chief technical advisor to the ILO Skills for Prosperity Programme in Malaysia and Ohno Izumi, senior research advisor at the JICA Ogata Research Institute and professor emeritus at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), have edited this book to report some of the outcomes of the “Research Project on the Japanese Experience of Industrial Development and Development Cooperation: Analysis of Translative Adaptation Processes.” This book is the last volume of a three-thematic series of the Research Project (industrial policy, quality and productivity improvement, and skill development).