A new narrative on the role of SKILLS for YOUTH in the Mediterranean

Thanks! This report highligths many important insights and conclusions and I would like to point to the need for career guidance and development it stresses. This links well with past and recent work of ETF in this area (see below). The study therefore builds an excellent basis for policy dialogue and future cooperation in this area in the region.

● Facebook live interview Career Guidance factsheet for Albania, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine: https://www.facebook.com/events/861000251419096/
● 7 new Career Guidance factsheets in English and national languages: https://openspace.etf.europa.eu/blog-posts/career-guidance-albania-kaza…
● ETF publication "International trends and innovation in career guidance" (EN, Turkish and Russian version)
○ Volume I: https://www.etf.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2020-11/innovation_in_car…
Volume II (practice cases): https://www.etf.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2020-11/innovation_in_car…
● ETF Career Guidance webpage: Career guidance https://www.etf.europa.eu/en/practice-areas/career-guidance

Hi 133 I fully agree! Career guidance is one of the single elements that could greatly help the transition from school to work. Now the question is really how to make existing service better and more efficient?

Thank you Francesca, exactly and ETF in cooperation with various partners is currently preparing the ground to systemtically support partner countries in career guidance system development. More details to be shared very soon!

Great report. What impressed me the most is that education represents such an important success factor despite the general shortage of economic opportunities. One of the questions that come to my mind is how to properly inform youth in SEMED about the important role that education can play in their future career. I think that proper information is one of the key factors to reduce youth unemployment, and spreading data and knowledge about the importance of skills and education is likely to impact many young job seekers positively.

We would like to hear from you! What is the role of education in SEMED countries? What can actors do to improve the transition from school to work?

2379 66 2765 2232 2184 1412 334 344 3111 3097 2969 1416 2685 70 2521 2380 2341 2179 1788 1762 1053 819 815 638 424 367 147 59 112 122 1116 158 608 594 565 513 433 512 404 138 396 13 366 362 342 323

There are many measures that can be put in place to improve transition from school to work. I personally believe that a more practice-oriented teaching process is an efficient way: real-life experiences through projects, apprenticeships, WBL, ... Also bringing businesses into the schools to share success stories, show latest technologies etc.

A lot to say Francesca, because the real change and deep reforms are not happening in SEMED! Education alone cannot ensure the smooth transition, even when the quality of learning is good, which is not always the case in SEMED countries anyway, It all the ecosystem starting by private sector contribution in education and training governance, anticipation and definition of the skills needs and even the assessment of the education outputs and outcomes. Cooperation with private sector around work-based learning, as highlighted by Kristien, is also capital for the transition from school to work. PESs in SEMED region have also their role to ease this transition, including transition from work-to-work.. They are not fully playing this role because of capacity, tools and resources. So more attention should be paid to PESs as well. Career guidance through life is also an element that can help as stated by Florian... A lot of fronts but in my humble opinion, the most important front that we should confront, as a matter of priority, is the establishment of partnerships with private sector at all levels for win-win outcomes and it is the responsibility of governments to break this vicious cycle by making the conditions for these partnerships and therefore trigger the real change.

Thanks for the outstanding report. If I have to talk about the South Mediterranean where I come from, I would say that one of our major concerns should be the NEET. If all the indicators concerning this category are all low it should be a waking alarm for us to act quickly. Getting back these youth into training seems to be the beginning of the solution. Some of them suffered a lack of equal opportunities in primary and secondary education and thus lacked many skills, especially foreign languages and life skills. While we're doing this, we should dare to devote a decent budget to host these learners in a state of the art centres where they'll feel, maybe for the first time, privileged. Morocco is in the process of doing this with the launch of a new generation of TVET centres called Cities of Skills and Occupations (Cité des Métiers et des Compétences).

Bravo Hamouti and Morocco ??.... indeed NEETs are a drama in the region! I understand the CMCs will address also inclusiveness issues....Did they start in some regions ?

Thanks a lot 2179 for this contribution! I fully agree that greater attention needs to be given to NEETs and this starts from primary education, then going up along the whole education system.

CMC are an excellent initiative and I congratulate Morocco for this! If you have documents or presentations don’t hesitate to share them! We would be glad to know more, and I am sure other countries too!

https://lematin.ma/journal/2020/cites-metiers-competences-nouvelle-gene…

Providing career guidance services for all education levels would narrow the gap between the school and the stage of engaging in work, but these services( unfortunately that's what happens in most developing countries) if not built on a strong base and based on the “FACTS” that have been analyzed through real studies of quality and credibility and provided to all target groups, most of the results are counterproductive to what is required to be achieved.
The Golden Key is a real, effective and deep-visional Career Guidance Services based on future plans of the private sector which can trusted by target groups.

What an interesting thread! I think all the suggestions made are very important! I would also put focus on lifelong learning and more flexible education opportunities, which would benefit different groups in different stages of life: students, NEETs, unemployed adults, people (in particular women) that have been at the margin of the labour market... All this accompanied with proper incentives and scholarships. Thank you Francesca and All!

Dear 2379 thanks for mentioning lifelong learning! That is really our focus when working with all countries. It is no longer about initial education only, people needs to be employable but also to remain employable in the long time. They need to be equipped with the skills that allow them to enter in the labour market after school but also to transit from job to job in the course of their life. And they also need support for that.

As you have a very long time experience both in the Balkans and in SEMED, it would be great to hear your opinion about similarities and differences re-the youth situation and possible actions for support. In ETF we have worked a lot in 2020 about the youth topic in these different regions. We are now planning an internal reflection to exactly explore these topics and understand if mutual learning from the two regions can be envisaged (there are surely many common points but also differences, and maybe some solutions may also be common, while others would be much more context specific). Thanks a lot for your precious thoughts! 187