The BRICS New Delhi Declaration of September 2026 places renewed emphasis on strengthening skill-development systems, digital literacy, workforce preparedness and the alignment of training with changing market demands. It also highlights linkages between TVET institutions and industry and continued cooperation through BRICS education mechanisms.

But what does this look like in practice across the BRICS countries? Rather than ranking countries or looking for a single model to copy, this Skills Radar looks at selected initiatives, frameworks and practices across the 11 BRICS member countries. The comparison focuses on one example from each member country that offers a useful point of reference for India.

The article covers the 11 BRICS member countries and does not examine the 10 partner countries. The examples selected are not intended to represent the entire skills ecosystem of any country. Instead, they provide specific practices that can help examine how different countries are responding to common challenges in skills development, TVET, industry engagement, workforce preparedness and emerging technologies.

Each country section looks at one of the key initiatives, why it stands out and what India could explore in the context of its own skills ecosystem.

Skills Initiatives Across 11 BRICS Member Countries

The 11 BRICS member countries have different skills systems, policy priorities and institutional contexts. The examples below highlight one selected initiative, framework or practice from each country. They are not intended to provide a complete picture of each country’s skills ecosystem, but to bring out specific approaches that are relevant to India’s ongoing skills and workforce development efforts.

For each country, the focus is on what the initiative is, why the approach is relevant, and what India could explore in its own context.

Brazil

One of the key initiatives: Brazil’s Professional Apprenticeship policy combines theoretical training with practical experience in the workplace. It covers young people aged 14–24 and persons with disabilities, without an age limit for the latter. The Ministry of Labour and Employment maintains a national register of qualified training entities and an occupationally structured catalogue of apprenticeship programmes (CONAP).

What stands out. The formal connection between occupational training and employment is supported by an approved training system and occupationally organised programmes. The Ministry also provides a data dashboard to monitor apprenticeship by region, sector and occupation.

What India could explore. How can apprenticeship and workplace learning become more systematically connected to occupational curricula, employers and progression pathways in India?

China

One of the key initiatives: Reform of Key Elements of Vocational Education Teaching / Industry–Education Integration. China’s Ministry of Education issued 2026 guidance covering professional programmes, curricula, teaching materials, teachers, internships and practical training. It calls for stronger government–industry–enterprise–school cooperation and a shift from knowledge transmission towards broader competence development.

What stands out. The emphasis is on changing several components of vocational education together rather than treating industry linkage as a stand-alone partnership activity.

What India could explore. Can industry participation become embedded in curriculum, training, assessment and institutional development rather than remaining primarily at the level of consultation or MoUs?

Egypt

One of the key initiatives: Egypt’s Occupational Outlook is an online platform covering more than 400 occupations. Profiles include tasks, employment growth, geographical distribution, average wages, education requirements, skills and projected employment through 2030. The platform is updated annually using labour-force data.

What stands out. It turns labour-market information into a resource that can be used to understand occupations, compare opportunities and examine changing skill requirements.

What India could explore. How can India’s labour-market and skills information be made more usable for learners, institutions, employers and curriculum designers—and more directly connected to programme decisions?

Ethiopia

One of the key initiatives: Ethiopia’s Technical and Vocational Training Strategy 2025 Strategy sets out reforms including outcome-based curricula, stronger industry connections, improved quality assurance, work-based learning, labour-market information systems, recognition of prior learning, Sector Skill Councils and Centres of Excellence.

What stands out. The strategy attempts to connect skills demand, institutional autonomy, industry participation, assessment, work-based learning and outcomes rather than treating them as isolated reforms.

What India could explore. How can India strengthen the connections between skills intelligence, institutional capacity, industry participation and outcomes across its already extensive skills ecosystem?

India

One of the key initiatives: Skill India Digital Hub (SIDH), BRICS-TCA Flagship Initiatives and the proposed BRICS Skills Cooperation Agenda. Skill India Digital Hub brings skilling, employment and apprenticeship opportunities together on a common digital platform. It also supports emerging-skills initiatives such as AI-focused learning.

Under India’s 2026 BRICS Chairship, the BRICS-TCA Research Symposium and Joint Management Committee meeting brought member-country initiatives into discussion. India proposed a BRICS International Skill Gap Study, a BRICS Skills Competition and a Compendium of Good Practices covering industry partnerships, digital learning, qualifications and financing mechanisms. These efforts align with India’s wider Skill India agenda and the Viksit Bharat 2047 vision for a future-ready workforce.

What stands out. India is not approaching the BRICS skills conversation as a newcomer. It is simultaneously a large skills-system laboratory and a contributor to the emerging BRICS knowledge-sharing agenda.

What India could explore. The question for India is increasingly one of system coherence: how can multiple policies, institutions, partnerships and initiatives be connected so that learning, implementation and outcomes reinforce one another?

Indonesia

One of the key initiatives: Indonesia’s Teaching Factories and Industry-linked TVET,  has developed TVET–industry collaboration through industry participation in curricula, internships, teaching practitioners, teaching factories and student certification. The ILO has also documented industry-based apprenticeship and learning-centre models, including the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indonesia learning centre in Karawang.

What stands out. Industry engagement can extend into the learning environment itself; influencing what is taught, how it is taught and how competence is demonstrated.

What India could explore. How can more Indian institutions create genuine industry-linked learning environments rather than relying mainly on external placements?

Iran

One of the key initiatives: Modernisation of the National Instructor Training Centre, a UNESCO-UNEVOC and UNESCO Tehran initiative, supported by KOICA, is modernising Iran’s Instructor Training Centre to strengthen trainer capacities, upgrade facilities and teaching methodologies, improve technology readiness and increase TVET relevance for a green, entrepreneurial and digital future.

What stands out. The initiative puts the capacity of instructors and the training environment at the centre of TVET modernisation—not only the curriculum delivered to learners.

What India could explore. How systematically are Indian teachers and trainers being prepared to respond to AI, automation, digital technologies and changing occupational practices?

Russia

One of the key initiatives: Professionalitet, is a federal vocational education project built around partnerships between colleges and enterprises. By the end of 2025, the project reported 506 clusters across 86 regions and nearly 2,500 employer partners. Employers participate in college management, equipment modernisation, programme development and employment pathways.

What stands out. The initiative attempts to make the vocational institution itself more closely connected to the productive sector, with practical preparation and employer involvement built into the model.

What India could explore. Could stronger regional clusters of institutions and employers create more coherent local skills ecosystems in India?

Saudi Arabia

One of the key initiatives: Saudi Arabia’s Sectoral Skills Councils were established as part of its labour-market strategy to identify current and future skills needs in priority sectors. The councils bring together employers, government bodies, labour representatives and sector experts and work on skills frameworks, professional standards and alignment between training and labour-market needs.

What stands out. The councils are designed as a formal link between the skills system and the sectors that generate employment, with skills anticipation built into the mechanism.

What India could explore. How can skills forecasting become more closely connected to programme planning, curriculum decisions and employer demand in India?

South Africa

One of the key initiatives: South Africa is embedding digital skills, renewable energy, robotics, coding, cybersecurity and AI into TVET programmes. The Department of Higher Education and Training has also reported lecturer upskilling and investment in 4IR centres of excellence, AI laboratories, coding and robotics hubs, smart manufacturing facilities and cybersecurity infrastructure.

What stands out. The approach recognises that technology readiness requires both learner-facing infrastructure and educators who can teach and apply emerging technologies.

What India could explore. How systematically are Indian teachers and trainers being prepared alongside learners for the changing technology environment?

UAE

One of the key initiatives: The UAE’s updated National Qualifications Framework (QFEmirates), approved in 2024, provides an eight-level framework covering general education, higher education and TVET. It is intended to recognise learning acquired through formal, informal and non-formal environments and to structure qualifications around knowledge, skills and responsibility.

What stands out. The framework creates a common architecture for qualifications across different education and training pathways, with an explicit outcomes-based orientation.

What India could explore. How can qualification transparency, recognition and portability be strengthened across India’s education, training and employment pathways?

What the 11 Member Countries Skills Radar Tells Us

The comparison does not point to one model that India should simply copy. Instead, the 11 examples highlight different ways countries are trying to respond to common challenges in skills development.

• Stronger industry participation: Brazil, China, Indonesia and Russia provide examples of moving industry involvement closer to the actual learning and training process.
• Better use of labour-market intelligence: Egypt and Saudi Arabia illustrate mechanisms for making occupational and sectoral information more visible and usable.
• Institutional capacity matters: Iran and South Africa highlight the importance of upgrading teachers, trainers, facilities and technology alongside curriculum reform.
• Work-based learning needs structure: Brazil and Indonesia show different ways of connecting learning with authentic workplace experience.
• Qualifications shape mobility: The UAE example demonstrates how a common qualifications architecture can connect different education and training pathways.
• System coherence remains the larger challenge: Ethiopia and India illustrate, in different contexts, the importance of connecting multiple reforms rather than treating each initiative as a stand-alone intervention.

The most useful question, therefore, may not be ‘Which country has the best skills system?’ It is: ‘Which practices from across the BRICS ecosystem could help India strengthen the connections between the many initiatives it already has?’

Also read: The BRICS Skills Challenge: 50 Questions the New Delhi Declaration Raises

What the BRICS Skills Initiatives Mean for India

The 11 BRICS member countries present different approaches to common skills challenges. The examples in this Skills Radar range from apprenticeship and industry-linked learning to labour-market intelligence, instructor development, emerging-technology infrastructure and qualifications frameworks.

The comparison does not suggest that any one initiative can be directly replicated in India. Instead, it highlights practices that can contribute to ongoing discussions on strengthening industry engagement, improving labour-market information, preparing teachers and trainers for technological change, connecting learning with workplaces and creating greater coherence across education, training and employment pathways.

For India, the value of the BRICS Skills Radar lies in using these international examples as reference points while strengthening the many initiatives already underway across its skills ecosystem.

Want to Know More?

If you would like to know more about the initiatives covered or receive relevant resources and updates on TVET and skills development across BRICS, write to us at contact@nationalskillsnetwork.com.

Reference:

• BRICS New Delhi Declaration: Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability, 12–13 September 2026, especially paragraphs 124–125. Official source: Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India.
• BRICS New Delhi Declaration, paragraphs 124–125 — Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India
• BRICS-TCA Symposium and JMC Meeting, 4 August 2026 — Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship