Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download
ePaper created 2015-12-01, 11:30:18 | version 1.43.00
akzente 1/1524 IN FOCUS » SKILLS DEVELOPMENT ProjeCt: Promoting vocational training and the labour market Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development Lead executing agency: Palestinian ministries of education, higher education and labour Overall term: 2011 TO 2015 PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES GIZ has developed strategies for vocational training and employment in order to equip more young Palestinians with skills that match the region’s labour market needs. The programme is receiving additional support from the European Union and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. www.giz.de/en/worldwide/18117.html 3 EXAMPLES OF WORK AT sport ProjeCt: Promoting girls and young women through sport and sports coaching in schools Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development PARTNER: Afghanistan Football Federation Overall term: 2013 TO 2015 AFGHANISTAN In cooperation with the German Football Association, national sports bodies and the Afghan Ministry of Education, GIZ is training female sports teachers. The aim is to improve the opportunities for girls to participate in sport. The school day currently offers girls little scope for physical activity. www.giz.de/expertise/html/9915.html 4 In this way, Afghanistan is attempting to replicate a model espoused by Georg Kerschensteiner in Germany in the late 19th century. Kerschensteiner, who served as Mu- nich’s Director of State Schools, was one of the founding fathers of Germany’s network of vocational schools, which in his day were still known as ‘industrial schools’ (Arbeitsschulen). He believed that career prospects, com- bined with civic education, would protect young men from ‘moral decay’. But what can be done today to tackle the high rate of youth unemployment? Even in Europe, the under-25s now account for around one third of the long-term un- employed. According to the Bonn-based Institute for the Study of Labor, the under-25s are the weakest group in the European labour market, lacking experience, business ex- pertise, and adequate protection from dismissal. Regard- less of whether the economy was booming or in recession, young people have always found it more difficult than adults to find work. In August 2014, youth employment in the Eurozone averaged 23 per cent. However, it was be- low 8 per cent in Germany. Economic stability is not the only reason why Ger- many is ahead of the game. A key factor is its dual educa- tion system, which combines workplace and classroom- based training and is one of Germany’s most successful exports. Global management consulting firm McKinsey conducted a study in 2014 entitled ‘Education to Em- ployment: Getting Europe’s Youth into Work’, for which it surveyed 5,300 young people, 2,600 employers and 700 education providers from eight countries: France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The aim was to evaluate the quality of vocational training and university education, and the re sults were sobering. The study found that Germany and the UK were the only countries where training providers consulted with employers regularly. This kind of dialogue was lacking in all other countries. While around 74 per cent of vocational training providers believed that they were preparing their students adequately for professional life, only 35 per cent of the employers agreed. Young people must become more mobile The young unemployed are all too familiar with the crushing feeling of being rejected. And the experience has a lasting effect throughout their careers, according to the Institute for Employment Research in Nuremberg: on average, every day of unemployment during the first years on the labour market increases unemployment