Young people across the globe have shown incredible resilience and adaptability in the face of a global pandemic that has not only threatened the health of their society, but curtailed their lifestyle and, in some instances, their capacity to equip themselves with skills for employment.
It is estimated that by 2025, 40% of current workers’ skills are expected to change in response to new labour market demands and rapid digital innovation cycles. Preparing youth for the workforce of the future is not only about facilitating high quality school and higher education learning environments, it requires attention to technical and vocational learning. World Youth Skills Day was declared by the United Nations General Assembly in 2014 to focus attention on technical and vocational skill development in youth, and specifically their ability to access affordable, quality technical and vocational education and training.
This year, World Youth Skills Day 2021 pays tribute to the resilience and creativity of youth through the crisis and correspondingly to the technical and vocational providers that have adapted their learning delivery models in the pandemic. A survey collected by UNESCO, the International Labour Organization and the World Bank identified that online learning has become the most common way of imparting skills in the sector but that vocational education and training institutions faced unique challenges due to their focus on practical skills and therefore the need to adapt curriculum, assessment and certification processes for online delivery.
International Labour Organization estimates show that globally, youth employment fell 8.7% in 2020, compared with 3.7%for adults. It is anticipated that the consequences of this disruption could have a flow on impact for years and that the vocational education and training sector will play a critical role in re-engaging and equipping youth for changing skill-demands by companies, organisations and communities.
At Moodle, we want to celebrate the resilience of our youth and those learning institutions in the vocational and training sector who have responded to the COVID-19 emergency by embracing online learning to support learning continuity and skill development.
Learn more about World Youth Skills Day and join UNESCO’s social media campaign on reimagining youth skills post pandemic.
Find out about Moodle LMS, the world’s most customisable and trusted open source learning management system.
Sources:
https://blogs.worldbank.org/jobs/what-weve-been-reading-how-improve-technical-and-vocational-education-and-training-youth
https://www.un.org/en/observances/world-youth-skills-day
https://unevoc.unesco.org/wysd/
