The beginnings of technical and vocational training in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia go back to an early stage, as it was divided between three government agencies at that time:
• Secondary technical education (industrial, agricultural, and commercial) was correlated with the Ministry of Education.
• Vocational training (vocational training centers) was related to the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.
• The Institutes of Technical Assistants were linked to the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs.
Due to the government's interest in preparing the workforce in technical and vocational fields and the increasing need to qualify Saudi youth in technical and vocational fields, it has been decided that all areas of technical and vocational training will be under one organization. Therefore, Royal Decree No. (30 / M) dated 8/10/1400 AH was issued to establish the General Organization for Technical Education and Vocational Training, which includes technical institutes and vocational training centers under its umbrella.
Accordingly, the organization began to carry out its tasks by developing programs and human resources in line with the country's responsibility to meet the needs of the business sector. As a result, the urgent need to create highly qualified national cadres capable of advancing the requirements of the ambitious development plans of the Kingdom was apparent. This need has been culminated in the issuance of High the Royal Order No. (7 / H / 5267) dated 7 / 3 / 1403H, which supports the decision of the Supreme Committee for Education Policy No. (209) dated 10/29/1402 AH, which included the need to support technical education at the level of technical colleges to open other disciplines for higher education in a field where the country's needs have grown and become urgent. The Royal Order confirmed that the responsibility for expanding this pattern lay on TVTC, which achieved several positive aspects, including:
1. The academic curriculum should not be dominant, and thus technical colleges maintain their special mission of preparing cadres for the labor market and its requirements.
2. The implementation of training programs in TVTC is to be in three vocational levels: vocational and industrial training (second and third levels) and technical training (fourth level). These levels reflect the TVTC's output of various qualifications. Besides, the majors - at these levels – are integrated, which helps a lot to take advantage of the widely available capabilities.
3. The relationship between technical colleges and the labor market should not recede, and the gap between training programs and the nature of the need in the work sector should be bridged and reduced.
4. TVTC should unify the curriculum, the qualification level, and the requirements of the training programs, and rely on unified bases and coordination based on vocational standards prepared by specialists in the labor market.
The royal endorsement for the bachelor's program No. (1194) / dated 06/10/1409 AH stipulated that “TVTC shall develop the Technical College in Riyadh and extend the study period to four years in order to grant a bachelor's degree in technical engineering." TVTC expanded its applied technical bachelor's program in training plans due to the need of the business sector for high rehabilitation to build leadership potentialities in technical and vocational fields.
In the year 1418/1419 AH, TVTC established a Center for Community Service and Continuous Training. Its mission stems from the desire to harness the financial and human capabilities of the Corporation to serve the needs of the various work sectors, as this achieves a better investment for technical and human resources and linking educational and training units to those sectors. Also, the Technical Trainers and Multimedia Center Institute was established in Riyadh, and it was one of the most important training and development facilities in the field of preparing technical trainers to meet the needs of vocational training units in all disciplines. It provides two types of programs: preparatory programs and developmental programs.
By establishing technical colleges, TVTC developed technical and vocational training tracks in a progressive system to technically prepare the qualified workforce with different levels to meet the local market's need for skillful technical and vocational working hands with varying skill levels. According to the idea of joining technical and vocational training fields under one umbrella, the Council of Ministers Resolution No. (3108), dated 4/3/1426 AH, was issued to affix the vocational training sector for girls to the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation and establish technical colleges for girls, focusing on vocational training programs for women and enabling them to get a suitable job after graduation.
In 1428 AH, the Royal Order No. (268) was issued on 8/14/1428 AH to restructure TVTC according to the orientations of the Kingdom . TVTC continued in developing training programs to focus on skills and operating efficiency. It attracted the best international expertise in technical training to operate international colleges and strategic partnerships institutes, help existing colleges to improve the quality of training, and make optimal use of the available human and financial resources to contribute to providing distinguished quality training. And due to the importance of integration between education in its various levels and technical training, the Council of Ministers issued a resolution (469), dated 7/20/1438 AH, that The Minister of Education chairs TVTC's Board of Directors.