| Overview : The UNDP Myanmar country programme, as part of its ‘Pillar 1’ Local Governance programme, includes under its Output 4 (Strengthened institutional capacity of institutions to support sustainable livelihoods and reintegration programs) activities targeted to enhance institutional capacity to create employment opportunities, particularly for women and youth. One notable vocational training institution is the 100-year old Saunder Weaving School located in Amarapura Township in Mandalay Region. Weavings from Amarapura have a long history of being of high quality and the school enjoyed many years as a great vocational school producing high quality students. Now approaching its anniversary, the school’s importance and relevance to the region and the weaving sector overall has waned, as its infrastructure, machines and techniques have all become outdated. The Small Scale Industries Department (SSID) in the Ministry of Co-Operatives developed a plan to upgrade the school to become the Saunder Weaving and Training Institution to include both weaving and training in other vocational sectors. On the request of SSID, UNDP commissioned an institutional capacity assessment of the school in March 2014. It was recommended that the focus should be solely on transforming the school into a Weaving Center of Excellence, to serve as the country’s core place for modern and up-to-date skills development methods in textiles and weaving, to preserve the rich culture of textiles in Myanmar, and to produce graduates of substantial capacity ready to enter various areas of the textile sector. Establishing a Weaving Centre of Excellence would be under all circumstances a comprehensive project with a variety of components, including mission refinement; institutional capacity development; infrastructure set-up, curriculum development and management reorganization, over an estimated 4-5 year period. UNDP agreed to develop a project document as a reference for the government,that can serve as an implementation guidance and could be used to attract development partners (DPs) for support. A number of DPs (ADB, GIZ, UNESCO, ILO and SDC) are involved in the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector working group, established as part of the Comprehensive Education Sector Review (CESR) process, launched in October 2012. | 
