Events

On 15 July, UNESCO-UNEVOC will join the global celebrations to mark World Youth Skills Day (WYSD). The aim of WYSD is to recognize the strategic importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship, and to highlight the crucial role of skilled youth in addressing current and future global challenges.

World Youth Skills Day 2020 will take place in a challenging context. The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures have led to the worldwide closure of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, threatening the continuity of skills development. UNESCO currently estimates that nearly 70% of the world’s learners are affected by school closures across education levels. Respondents to a survey of TVET institutions, jointly collected by UNESCO, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Bank, reported that distance training has become the most common way of imparting skills, with considerable difficulties regarding, among others, curricula adaptation, trainee and trainer preparedness, connectivity, or assessment and certification processes.

Currently, more than 1 in 6 young people are out of work due to COVID-19. As young people are called upon to contribute to the recovery effort, they will need to be equipped with the skills to successfully manage evolving challenges and the resilience to adapt to future disruptions.

Virtual Event on Skills for a Resilient Youth in the Era of COVID-19 and Beyond

Focusing on resilience, the World Youth Skills Day 2020 will take stock of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on skills development and explore strategies in response to the unfolding economic crisis. This entails preparing young people with the capacities to respond to rapid changes in employment and entrepreneurship in the sectors that are hardest hit by the crisis. In the longer term, this means adapting skills development systems to changes in the world economy that the pandemic and recession will bring.

The event is organized by the Permanent Missions of Sri Lanka and Portugal to the UN, the Office of the Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth, UNESCO and ILO. Join and engage in this virtual celebration which brings together young people, the UN Member States, TVET institutions, the private sector, workers’ organizations, policy makers and development partners. Please sign up here.

URL:

https://unevoc.unesco.org/wysd/