ASSET project integrates AI to TVET classrooms

Thursday, 17 July 2025 00:04 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

ASSET workshop to unfold from 18 to 23 July in Colombo is in tune with 2025 WYSD theme

By Randima Attygalle

In a bid to equip local technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions with AI-driven, relevant and accessible learning materials, a futuristic project under the banner, ‘AI for Skills, Sustainability and Training’ (ASSET) has been launched here at home. The initiative is a collaboration between the UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training and the University of Vocational Technology (UoVT). UNESCO-UNEVOC is the international centre for connecting UNESCO Member States worldwide to develop and strengthen TVET.

While AI holds enormous potential to enhance teaching, learning, and employability, recent diagnostics by UNEVOC Centres reveal that TVET teachers often lack context-relevant, accessible learning materials to meaningfully integrate AI into their classrooms. The ASSET project responds to this gap by leveraging the collective expertise of the UNEVOC Network to co-create, test, and scale an inclusive, multilingual, and browser-based self-learning course on AI in TVET. It is aligned with SDG 4.4 (skills for employment and decent work) and SDG 8.5 (inclusive and sustainable economic growth through education).

The ASSET project, as UNESCO-UNEVOC Coordinator for Sri Lanka and UoVT’s Faculty of Information and Communication Technology Senior Lecturer, Dr. Janaka Jayalath explains, envisions a scalable and adaptable model for teacher-training in AI. This model also fosters institutional innovation, international collaboration, and inclusive digital transformation within the global TVET landscape. “AI is transforming every sphere at an unprecedented speed and TVET too has to keep abreast with this change. However, recent diagnostics by UNEVOC Centres reveal that TVET teachers often lack context-relevant, accessible learning materials to meaningfully integrate AI into their classrooms. The ASSET project is a response to bridge this gap,” says Jayalath.

The UoVT is partnered by Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany and the Human Resource Development Council (HDRC), Mauritius, in implementing the project. The four-phase implementation model of the project will target a wide audience including TVET teachers, in-service trainers, instructional designers, e-learning coordinators, technical mentors, policy-makers, curriculum developers, educationists and industry representatives. Marking the second phase of the implementation process, a hands-on international course development workshop and an international conference on Information and Education Innovations in Sri Lanka, producing draft learning units is to take place from 18 to 22 July in Colombo. The event will bring together leading industry experts and scholars from the three implementing countries.

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