The ILO will bring together employer, worker and government representatives from across the region to discuss progress and challenges faced in implementing apprenticeship systems, based on recommendations from a previous ILO regional training on ways to improve existing systems and programmes in the Arab States.

Participants of the three-day-training will include members of national TVET boards, company representatives with positive experience in apprenticeship systems, workers’ representatives, and NGOs implementing apprenticeship programmes from the occupied Palestinian territory, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen, Oman, Iraq and Egypt, most of whom participated in the previous ILO seminar which examined how governments, unions, and employers can work more effectively together in terms of funding legislation and policies to produce better quality apprenticeship programmes. Core recommendations at the 2013 seminar included the protection of apprentices by labour code provisions and allowing them to engage in social dialogue and collective bargaining like all other workers.

A fourth day will be organised on April 1st, jointly with the Belgian Development Agency for a Palestinian delegation, to finalise a roadmap for work-based learning in Palestine.

The follow-up seminar’s objectives, include:

• Hold discussions with participants on the main achievements of the action plan implementation;
• present useful tools and instruments; 
• allow for peer-to-peer exchange between regional partners; and
• map out practical steps for a new revised action oriented work plan.