Skills
SAGE is a DFID supported, integrated programme to improve the lives of adolescent girls, responding to the multiple and interrelated disadvantages they face. It comprises two components: Delivery of integrated services for vulnerable adolescent girls through a safe spaces approach, including enhancing their access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education and services. Support for… Read more
Although there are options available for building health workers’ and health policy makers’ capacity to become stronger leaders (i.e. as public health leaders or managers), there is little evidence that specific training or courses lead to sustainably better leadership and management skills. It is argued that the most effective types of capacity building processes to… Read more
There is growing evidence that youth unemployment is becoming a bigger issue and challenge than adult unemployment (Manpower group, 2012). While young labour participants and adult participants can be affected by similar opportunities and barriers to work, youth may experience these barriers to a greater degree and may also face additional constraints. This report explores… Read more
Estimates of how many jobs are vulnerable to being replaced by machine vary but it is clear that developing countries are more susceptible to automation compared to high-income countries. Traditionally, blue-collar routine jobs have been automated but with the emergence of greatly improved computing power, artificial intelligence and robotics, a much larger scope of occupations… Read more
On 18 and 19 March 2017, together with around 1,500 people from around the world, I attended the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai. The Forum provided an exciting platform to celebrate the importance of teachers around the world. Organised by the Varkey Foundation, it was also a stark reminder of the difficulties that… Read more
From June to November 2008, the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children conducted an assessment of educational and skills training opportunities available to displaced youth in Darfur. This report looks at the challenges and opportunities young people face; examines existing services targeting youth; identifies programming gaps; and provides recommendations on how donors, policymakers and… Read more
Muriel Dunbar, Senior Skills Adviser at Cambridge Education, provides a definition of skills and looks at how widely this extends in terms of educational backgrounds, types of skill, range of ages and range of sectors. She defines skills as: ‘the combination of technical, cognitive and behavioural competences which enable a worker to acquire and retain… Read more
Increasing access to education and skills development through technology, particularly for ‘21st century skills,’ can offer opportunities for displaced youth. Alternately, not investing in, and encouraging, new and innovative ways of delivering training, skills and education will result in many youth falling further behind. The gap between those who can contribute to the economy and… Read more
Skills for development has been a neglected part of many bilateral and multilateral agencies’ work for the past quarter-century. In the late 1980s, the momentum for a renewed priority for primary education drew heavily on research from the World Bank that showed that rates of return to vocational education and training were comparatively low (e.g.,… Read more