UNESCO to Promote Skills Development and Youth Employment in Africa

By Vera Shawiza

Better Education for Africa’s Rise (BEAR), UNESCO’s project promoting skills development and youth employment in Africa, is transitioning to its second phase, BEAR II, which will be implemented from 2017 to 2021.

Kenya, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, and Uganda are set to benefit from the second phase of the project. They will receive technical assistance from UNESCO and international experts with the financial support of the Republic of Korea.

Expert teams from UNESCO have already undertaken scoping visits in all five beneficiary countries, meeting with national Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) stakeholders to identify their national industry and education needs.

The aim of BEAR II is to strengthen access to decent employment and generate self-employment for young people, by improving the quality, relevance, and perception of the national TVET systems in the five countries.

Specific economic sectors will be targeted in each of the beneficiary countries, selected on the basis of their potential to promote youth employment and sustainable development, in line with each country’s socio-economic context and growth plans.

Some of the objectives of the project are to enhance the quality and management of TVET institutions through curriculum reforms; to meet the needs of individuals and the industry in increasingly emerging digital economies, and to improve the perception of TVET among young people.

The project will draw and build on the experiences, and achievements of the first BEAR project, to promote access to quality and relevant TVET, paying particular attention to the needs of women and disadvantaged groups.

The first BEAR project supported the transformation of TVET systems in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, and Namibia.

Both projects are building on the reputation of TVET as one of the best ways of alleviating poverty and empowering young people in the African continent, while at the same time responding to labor needs and driving economic growth in the beneficiary countries.

The project contributes to the global efforts for implementing the Education 2030 Agenda, the Continental Education Strategy for Africa and the UNESCO Strategy for TVET.