I am a BARBER, is that a TVET JOB?

 

This is a tale of a crisis of image and branding.

Someone once asked me whether barbering is TVET.

At first, I did not know how to answer, because the question can be approached from many different angles. The confusion, however, is not really about barbering. The confusion is about what TVET actually refers to.

A clear starting point is this: TVET is a learning pathway — a system of education and training — not a job title. TVET refers to organised learning that prepares people with occupational and technical skills for the world of work. In global policy language, TVET can be delivered through different modes: formal (institution-based and certified), non-formal (outside the formal system), and it also connects to learning that takes place in workplaces and communities. (International Labour Organization)

A barber, on the other hand, is an occupation. The occupation exists regardless of how the person learned. This is why the most accurate answer is not “a barber is TVET,” but:

A barber can be trained through TVET.

Now the important nuance: how did the barber learn?
If the barber learned through a vocational institute, structured apprenticeship, or a planned training programme, that learning route fits TVET because it is intentional and organised education/training. 

If the barber learned purely through family practice, peers, or self-learning, then the person has gained a real vocational skill—but that route is typically described as informal learning, not an organised TVET programme.

Yes, perhaps this is the real crisis.

The issue is not barbering itself. Barbering can be a highly skilled, profitable, and respected occupation. The crisis emerges when society begins to confuse occupations with educational pathways, reducing TVET into a narrow label attached only to selected trades or manual work. Once this happens, TVET is no longer seen as a broad national system for workforce capability, industrial development, technology adaptation, and economic growth. Instead, it becomes socially framed as merely “certain types of jobs.” The misunderstanding is therefore not about barbering — it is about the public image and identity of TVET itself.

So the clean answer is:

Barber = job/occupation and NOT a TVET JOB
...you can do barbering without a TVET pathway, unless the Barber Industry needs some form of certification.

Let see how Barbering fares across the world. Have a look below:

As TVET Practitioners, we have a duty to understand our domain and ourselves NOT MISREPRESENT it.

Anyway, anyone needs a head massage as well to go with that hair cut? : )