NN46, September 2011
Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark
Access and Approaches to Skills and to Work in a Disabling Economic Environment
By Rama Kondapalli, United Nations Refugee Works Agency (UNRWA), Amman
Email: ramakondapalli@hotmail.com
Keywords: Palestine Refugees; Community Based Organisations; Micro credit
Summary: United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) established in 1949 is mandated with responding to the needs of the Palestine Refugees until a durable and just solution is arrived at on the Palestine refugee issue. UNRWA through its various initiatives such as establishing and engaging community based organizations for skills development, extension of the Micro credit provision, the multi-skilling and competency based training and linking of these initiatives with the requirements of the youth specifically who had no access to TVET earlier, enhanced the young workers’ interests for learning and self-directedness thereby providing sustainable livelihoods to a population who are impacted by restrictions on movements and other barriers.
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Prolonged conflicts and shattered economy, negatively impact upon the emotional well being of the youth and their families. Often conflicts also result in long term unemployment and adversely affect the individuals in potential age groups in terms of loss of income and possibility to work. For example prolonged conflict and restrictions in Gaza and West Bank resulted in rapidly deteriorating socio-economic situations of the Palestinian refugees. One in 5 persons in Gaza is between 15 and 24 years of age and 72% of the 15-to-19-year age group and 66% of those aged between 20 and 24 years are unemployed. In West Bank these rates stand at 29% and 34% for the age groups, 15-19 and 20-24 respectively. In Lebanon the Palestine refugees “Poverty rates inside refugee camps (due to restrictions on refugees to work) are estimated at about 40 percent of the population, in comparison with the 7 - 8 percent observed in the poorest Lebanese areas. Tackling issues of unemployment in situations of conflict and post conflict not only requires creating employment opportunities but needs more focus on ensuring appropriate skills development and retraining for self-employment. Thus in United Nations Refugee Works Agency (UNRWA), Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is located under Goal 3 i.e. “A decent standard of living”, and is perceived as essential for reducing poverty and improving employability and economic stability of the Palestine refugee youth.
During prolonged conflict, TVET programmes “could and often should act as a carrier for services that have not traditionally been considered to fall within the scope of TVET.” For establishing and operationalising such a TVET system and provide access to the refugees, UNRWA supported in establishment and engaged the community managed and administered Women’s Programme Centers (WPCs) and Community Based Organisations (CBO’s) in the refugee camps. Various short term vocational and skills development courses of 3-6 months duration are offered through these centers. Research shows that access to know-how and knowledge if conjoined with initial seed money is the most effective way to encourage entrepreneurship and self-employment. Entrepreneurship has thus been a focus of UNRWA in all its TVET provisions. Also, for furthering economic development and creating jobs for the refugees who are vulnerable to economic stress and have no access to formal credit systems UNRWA provides microenterprise credit facility and customized training for business people and entrepreneurs. Also UNRWA managed support from NGOs in facilitating Palestine refugees establishing small and medium sized enterprise. The UNRWA microfinance department supports and supplements TVET in providing “A decent standard of living” to Palestine refugees as it “endeavors to improve the quality of life of small business owners, micro-entrepreneurs and poor households through the provision of credit and other financial service that sustain jobs, decrease unemployment, reduce poverty, economically empower youth and women and provide income generating and asset building opportunities to Palestine refugees.”
TVET provision in situations of prolonged conflict needs to adopt a holistic approach “that seeks to improve livelihoods, promote inclusion in to the world of work and that supports community and individual agency.” Such an approach involves an integrated framework that facilitates development of both “soft” and “hard” skills among the trainees. In its attempts to improve its effectiveness and efficiency UNRWA TVET often took advantage of global good practices. For example through the introduction of the Competency-Based Training (CBT) approach UNRWA attempted to improve the skills levels of its graduates and their employment prospects. In Gaza, which has been witnessing increasing unemployment rates and little possibility of the children progressing to higher education, UNRWA introduced modular approaches with multi exit and entry points. UNRWA Vocational Training Centres (VTCs) have put in concerted efforts in establishing programs that are more responsive to the local and regional labour markets demands. Such a holistic approach to TVET has been valuable and relevant particularly to the refugees impacted by conflicts and severe economic crisis. UNRWA also supports NGOs and other local agencies in upgrading competences of their employees thereby enabling the development of the sector as a whole. To support placement of students especially in Gaza, UNRWA negotiated with various employers for guaranteed employment to the students successfully completing a six months apprenticeship programme.
Overall, the multi-skilling and competency based training being promoted in the VTCs, involving CBOs and NGOs, the extension of the Micro credit provision and linking of these initiatives with the requirements of the refugee youth specifically who had no access to TVET earlier, enhanced the young refugees’ interests for learning and self-directedness thereby providing sustainable livelihoods to a population who are impacted by restrictions on movements, limited access to services and finances and many other barriers.
Follow-up resources
Education for Employment: Realizing Arab youth potential : International Finance Corporation and Islamic Development Bank, April 2011l http://e4earabyouth.com/downloads/IFCBook_A4_Online_Complete.pdf
UNRWA. 2010. Rhetoric and Reality – Human Rights and Palestine Refugees. http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=400
World Bank, The Road Not Travelled: Education Reform in the Middle East and North Africa: Washington, D.C., http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTMENA/Resources/EDU_Flagship_Full_ENG.pdf
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Cite article as: Kondapalli, R., (2011) ‘Access and Approaches to Skills and to Work in a Disabling Economic Environment’, in NORRAG NEWS, Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark, No.46, September 2011, pp. 117-119, available: http://www.norrag.org
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