DUSHANBE, October 22, 2012 Asia-Plus – The ENESCO tenth Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Putting Education to Work, reveals the urgent need to invest in skills for youth.
According to the Report, in Central Asia (CA) and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), almost 4 million people aged 15 to 24 have not even completed primary school and need alternative pathways to acquire basic skills for employment and prosperity. A third of the population in CEE and almost a half of the population in CA is under 25-years-old. Worldwide, one in eight young people is unemployed; a quarter is trapped in jobs that keep them on or below the poverty line. As the effects of the global economic crisis continue to be felt, the severe lack of youth skills is more damaging than ever.
The Report shows that few are on track to meet the six Education for All goals set in 2000, and some, such as Albania, are lagging behind.
The Report looks in depth at youth skills, one of the least analyzed of the six goals. It shows that young people need the skills taught at primary and lower secondary school to find decent jobs. This is unlikely to improve anytime soon. In these two regions more than one million children and over 1.5 million teenagers are out of school missing out on vital skills for future employment.
Poor young populations, urban and rural, are the most in need of skills training. The majority of the poor and least educated live in rural areas, however. Many young farmers facing land scarcity and the effects of climate change lack even basic skills needed to protect themselves and stay afloat. Those not in farm work urgently need training in business and marketing to find new opportunities and reduce the obligation of migrating to cities in search of a job.
Women are the most in need both in rural and urban areas. A quarter of young women in rural areas in Tajikistan, for example, have less than a lower secondary school education.
This is a problem felt in developed countries too. The Education for All Global Monitoring Report calculates that 160 million adults in rich countries do not have the skills to write a job application.
Investing in young peoples’ skills is a smart move for countries seeking to boost their economic growth. The Education for All Global Monitoring Report estimates that every $1 spent on a person’s education, yields US$10-US$15 in economic growth over that person’s working lifetime.
It is time to take action to support skills development for young people, the Report notes.
Recommendations: 1) 4 million young people in Central Asia and Central and Eastern Europe need to be given alternative pathways to learn foundation skills; 2) all young people need quality training in relevant foundation skills at lower secondary school; 3) upper secondary curricula should provide a balance between vocational and technical skills, including IT, and transferable skills such as confidence and communication which are indispensable for the work place; 4) skills strategies must target the disadvantaged: particularly young women and urban and rural poor; 5) $US8 billion is needed to ensure all young people attend lower secondary education. Governments as well as donors and the private sector must help fill the funding gap.
