The Millennium Challenge Corporation partnered with the government of El Salvador to improve the quality of education and strengthening the national TVET system. The main goals of the TVET system Activity were to improve the governance of the TVET system and enhance its capacity to harmonize the skills supplied by education and training providers with the skills demanded by the labor market. The original vision and implementation plan for the TVET Activity involved reforming the system by creating a unique governing body responsible for the coordination across the private sector, formal education system, and the vocational training system. However, the key stakeholders could not reach agreement on a governance model for the TVET system, making it politically infeasible to execute the original plan. After two years, the creation of a standalone governing body was ruled out, and the intervention was redesigned and became the Integrated Technical Education and Professional Training System (TEPT) Sub-Activity. We used a qualitative approach to assess which aspects of the TEPT Activity worked well and which ones did not, and what barriers or facilitators seem to have helped or hindered the expected changes in the technical and vocational training system. This presentation focuses on how the team used stakeholder narratives to design the interventions, which helped to overcome the challenges encountered in implementing interventions and facilitated sustainability.
